Perhaps the biggest Christmas present we've given to the No. 1 cook was a new sewing machine and cabinet . . . perhaps the dumbest thing we've done was to put it in the master bedroom.
I get blamed every day for losing someone's pattern that was on the bed. Well, I'm the guy who has to tippy-toe around watching out for pins, round up armloads of patterns, material, thread and I don't know what before The King can retire for the night.
We've got three regular female seamstresses in our family and you can just about imagine what this lone soul goes through trying to change pants to go out when thê younger females are zipping back and forth sewing Shirts and Skirts.
I'm not complaining, you understand.
But doesn't it strike you that mebbe the women's lib movement has gone a little bit too far when I have to ask permission from one of the young Misses before I can retire for the night?
Just picture this.
The scene is The King's Retiring Room which is shared by the sewing machine.
"Millie, get these kids out of here so I can go to bed."
"Now Ivan, calm down. The girls have to get those culottes made or they won't have a thing to wear." (Oh my, how many times have I heard that?)
"Go downstairs and watch TV, daddy."
"Oh, you're a great help, kiddo. That blamed sewing machine does a zippety-zappo to the TV picture every time you step on that peddle."
"Mother, make him leave us alone or we'll be here all night."
"All night? Hah! There isn't much of the night left."
"Mother, please make him stop it."
"Whaddya mean make ME stop it? I'm the boss around this house and you kids will do what I say. You've got one minute to shut off that machine and light."
(I really showed them who was the boss.)
The next morning everyone was bubbling around with such smiles I felt kinda bad.
"Daddy, look at my new culottes."
"Wha . . . how?"
"Oh, you were sleeping so sound we didn't think you'd notice when we came back to the (get this) 'sewing room' to finish this job."
"Hey, you kids are pretty clever yuk yuk . . . jus' like the ole' King."
"Mother, make him stop that kind of talk!"
Schwan's Ice Cream salesman dropped off a price list of products at the house the other day. On the back side was an interesting story.
Here it is in part.
"Farmers are found in fields plowing, seeding, fertilizing, spraying and harvesting. Wives help them, little boys follow them, the salesmen detain them, meals wait for them, weather can delay them, but it takes Heaven to stop them.
"When your car stalls along the way, a farmer is a considerate, courteous, inexpensive road service.
"A farmer is a paradox: he is an 'overalled' executive with his home his office, a scientist using fertilizer attachments, a purchasing agent in an old straw hat, a personnel director with grease under his fingernails, a dietitian with a passion for alfalfa, animals and antibiotics, a production expert faced with a surplus, and a manager battling a price-cost squeeze. He manages more capital than many businessmen.
"He likes sunshine, good food, county and state fairs, dinner at NOON, auctions and above all, a good soaking rain in August.
"Nobody else can remove all those things from his pockets on washday and still have overlooked five steeples, one cotter key, a rusty spike, three kernels of corn, the stub end of a lead pencil and a cupful of chaff in each trouser cuff.
"A farmer must have faith to continually meet the challenges of his capacities amid an ever-present possibility that an act of God (a late spring, an early frost, tornado, flood, drought) can bring his business to a standstill. You can reduce his acreage, but you can't restrain his ambition.
"Might as well put up with him -- he is your friend, your competitor, your customer, your source of food and fiber and a self reliant citizen to help replenish your cities.
"And when he comes in at NOON for dinner having spent the energy of his hopes and dreams, he can be recharged anew with the magic words: 'The market's up.'"
Christmas week has an additionally special meaning at our house. It means that Millie and I will be starting our 22nd year of marriage and Mr. and Mrs. Herb Tiede, 1206 Third Avenue, will be starting their 46th year the same day, December 23.