FLANNEL TENTS

Sitting on the edge of my bed on one of the cold COLD nights of the last couple of months shivering as I got ready for bed made me remember similar times as a child. Looking back it seems that most of the houses I have lived in (this is number 50 to date) did not have central heating. Those old houses didn't have insulation either. The main source of heat, usually a wood, coal or oil heater, was on the main floor and the second floor was barely above freezing so we didn't linger in our bedrooms before getting beneath the covers, as many as we could pile on and on really cold nights we would add "Old Joe" (Dads tanned horsehide of one of his favorite horses) as the top layer. The trick was to get out of our clothes and into our nightgown as quickly as we could without feeling as though we were freezing. Mom made our nightgowns and they were huge. I think she used a full width piece of outing flannel ( it came n 36 inch widths then) for the front and the back. Deep hems allowed for lengthening and shortening to fit the current wearer. Maybe they just seemed huge to me being the youngest and wearing mostly hand-me-downs from my older sisters and cousins. Anyway they were big enough that Fannie and I got pretty good at using them as flannel tents. By pullling them over us but not down around our necks we had enough room to remove our day clothes before pulling them rest of the way down and putting our arms through the sleeves thereby retaining our body heat as we climbed quickly under the covers. Mom didn't have to worry about us coming uncovered in the night, especially if "Old Joe" was on the bed, because under all those covers we were so weighted down we could hardly move! My source of heat is a floor furnace on the main floor and I can close off the upstairs during the day to conserve heat so my bedroom got kind of chilly on those zero degree days and nights in January and February. Bless the person who invented heated mattress pads or I would have been wishing for "Old Joe" on my bed again! I was able to sleep in a nice warm bed. Memories are brought back by little things. Fannie, do you still have "Old Joe"? I remember Peggy screaming when she discovered it in one of the upstairs closets when we were clearing out the folks house when they went into the nursing home. Dan wanted it and became the proud possessor of "Old Joe". That was all a good many years ago! Love and God bless and keep you!