Darn those Socks!

I put on a pair of socks this morning and wondered if people ever darned socks anymore. Oh, it wasn’t a big hole. You know, one where your big toe is looking out, smiling at you. It was a small hole, that I knew would grow larger if I didn’t darn it. Or, it would grow larger if I didn’t care. I don’t care to darn.

Years ago, women darned socks when they became holey. That is a word, right?  Most women owned a sewing basket that contained all of the equipment one needed to sew. I remember looking in my great Aunt Elizabeths’s sewing basket one time. It amazed me. She was prepared. She could make house calls. I could hear her now…

“Aunt Elizabeth, I am afraid I have a hole in my sock. Oh dear. What will I do? I don’t own thread…or a needle…….No, but  I do have some floss.”

“I will be right over, Vickie. What color is your sock?”

I didn’t think it mattered what color thread you used. Apparently, some people frown upon seeing their white button on their white blouse sewn up with a red thread. Seven little buttons, one standing out like a sore thumb. Or sore button. But, in the whole scheme of things, who cares anymore?

At one time, all housewifes knew how to darn socks. It is a lost art.  It was just one of the assumed roles of every  housewife.  I remember how my mom would sit with her glasses down to her nose, sewing away. She never used a darning egg. Oh, she had one. I know that because my sister hit me with it one time. I had no idea what it was, but it hurt when applied to the forehead.

I remember seeing it in my mom’s sewing monstrosity of a basket one time, and thought it was a maracas like Ricky Ricardo used on I Love Lucy. I shook it, but it didn’t make noise. Leave it to my mom to keep broken musical instruments with her sewing stuff.  My sister soon found another use for it when she bopped me on the forehead with it for no reason whatsoever. I was a good girl. She was a walking temper tantrum “Release the Kraken” nightmare. Really. I did nothing to deserve it.

While my mom darned socks, I would look through all of the stuff she had with her sewing “needs.” The needle holder, aka, the tomato pin cushion, intrigued me. Why the hell would you stick pin needles in a fake tomato? Made absolutely no sense to me. I mean, why not a fake banana……. or a doll baby?  According to folklore, however, women during the Victorian Age put a tomato on the mantel of a new home for good luck. I wonder how long they kept it there?

Most seamstresses don’t realize it, but the little tassel that comes with the tomato is an emory (a fine grain sand or something, that is used as a needle/pin sharpener). 

But as I sit here, remembering my mom darning holey socks, I realize that I will just wear these socks until the hole gets so big and starts bugging me. Then I will throw the socks away.  Because I’m lazy and that’s how I roll. The only time I really care if I am wearing a holey sock is if I have to visit someone. Some people like for you to take off your shoes when you enter their house. I’m thinking someone must have stepped in dog poo at one time or another for people to become so insistent. So, I try to wear hole-less socks when visiting an up-tight friend.

When my daughter was home over Thanksgiving, she was mad because there was a little round hole in her black tights. I offered her one of my solutions, but she balked. It is a secret that I will share with you. If you put on a sock and it has a hole in it, don’t take the sock off. Color your foot. Yes, that’s right. If I have a hole in my sock and I am wearing clogs or some shoe that may show the little bastard, I put a dab of magic marker on my foot where the hole is and Voila! The skin is colored to match the color of your sock. No need to darn when you can color.

In the end, most garbage cans will see your socks. People just don’t have the time anymore to sit and darn socks.

So, put away the fake tomatoes and go buy new socks…They sell them at Walmart cheaper than the thread and accessories to sew them up in the first place.

Unless you feel the need to sit and hum and sew while your children beat the hell out of each other with the darning egg.

Isaly’s

When I was little, the church we attended each week was located next door to Isaly’s. For those of you who don’t know what Isaly’s was, their website explains it all:

The Isaly's in Weirton, right next to the church

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“Starting in the early 1930s, Isaly’s deli and dairy products were sold exclusively in Isaly’s own chain of bright, white-tiled stores with “Isaly’s” written large above the doors. Now, with changed lifestyles, those stores are mostly a fond memory. But the Isaly’s brand of meats and cheeses lives on, in supermarket delis and convenience stores throughout Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, parts of Maryland and Virginia, too. Generation after generation, the brand remains a family tradition.”

And what a tradition it was. I got to go there every Sunday after Sunday school. We rarely made it to church after Sunday school. I was hyper and couldn’t sit still. My sister had temper tantrums that were epic, and my poor brother just sat there. So, we would go right to Isaly’s for breakfast. I thought it was the neatest thing that my toast would come to me cut diagonally. Diagonally. I mean, who does that? My mom didn’t. So, after that, I demanded “Isaly’s toast” at home. If we went to any other restaurant, I would order “Isaly’s toast.” My mom had to explain to the waitress to just cut the damn thing diagonally and bring it to me. Voila! Isaly’s toast.

Isaly’s was famous for their chip chopped ham. It was sliced razor thin and was so delicious. We would stop at the bakery on the way home for some semi-hard rolls, and just stuff ourselves. So good.

People used to say that Isaly was an acronym for “I shall always love you Sweetheart,” but that is not true. Actually, the founder was William Isaly, a Swiss immigrant, who used the phrase in adverstising to help spell the name. So, next time someone tells you that it means, “I shall always love you Sweetheart,” you can call them a liar.

The Klondike Bar was also created by the Isaly company. What would you do for a klondike bar? The klondike bar has been around since 1922. And once malls opened around in the area, Isaly’s opened Sweet William. Bet you didn’t know that.

The whole point of this post is that I am hungry for that razon thin chipped chopped ham on a semi-hard roll. I try to stay clear of ham products because of my high cholesterol (which I blame on my mom because it surely isn’t my fault), but I want one just the same.

And the next time you put a couple slices of bread in the toaster, cut it diagonally. It will make you feel special.