The Sixties a Time of Enlightenment......for Moms

The Sixties a Time of Enlightenment ....for Moms

If you remember the sixties, then you remember the strides made in the modern kitchen. And when I say strides I don't mean steps taken by dad toward the fridge, but strides toward making the kitchen a modern marvel in electronic gadgets.
Big bright shiny ice cube making fridges towering beside gleaming electric four burner stove tops with large capacity ovens. Stove tops that are overshadowed by twin speed exhaust fans to remove any and all unpleasant cooking odors . Dishwashers that quietly complete the task that the children once fought over. And counter top electric mixers, clocks, can openers and even a transistor radio placed for easy access to make the modern housewife more efficient and happy.
Yes it was a big leap ahead for a housewife of the sixties. And everyone of these gadgets (except the dishwasher) all came with a light on them or in them. Open the door of the fridge a light comes on (or was it on all the time?). Open the stove another lights shines to let the baker know how the cooking process is advancing. Want to know how the Spam is frying up but the big bouffant hair doo is casting too long a shadow. No problem just flick a switch on the fan over the stove and voila, instant lighting, mystery solved. Want to mix up a cake under low lighting conditions? And who wouldn't! No problem the mixer has a headlight. Even moms vacuum had a headlight! So no matter what time of day mom could always get the vacuuming done. Everything mom had in the house all came with a bright guiding light that made the cooking and cleaning safe and enjoyable.
We now find ourselves out behind our house of the sixties, in a separate building just off the back alley, the garage. This was the place where the dads spent most of their waking hours when not at work or when hiding from the children of that era that were running around all seen but not heard.....Creepy!
Dads always had a project on the go out there in the garage. But never in my life did my Dad ever complete one. But he was always working on something out there.
"Where's your Father?" Mom would holler over the twin speed stove hood fan while cooking and mixing, multitasking and making ice cubes in her well lit cooking paradise.
Myself and my three brothers would stop our running around from where Mom could see us and be unsure as to wether to verbally respond or not. But when questioned again, only a little louder, we would report in well mannered somewhat breathless style (we were never sure when running around if we were allowed to breath so hard as to be heard) "He's in the garage building, cutting, puff puff pant, hammering, drilling wood together mom."
"Well get him in here and tell him to wash up for dinner. We're gonna eat in 5 minutes."
My oldest brother and I would go out to the garage to let dad know about dinner. At first quietly, taking turns on each others shoulders to peak though a torn corner of the cardboard he'd nailed over the window. We could hear more than see what took up Dads time. Electric saws screaming, burning through more than cutting through hardened wood of a first growth forest. Then he hammered together cut timber with nails of iron with mighty blows from an old wooden handled hammer with one broken claw. Then holes were burn drilled with dancing, moving dull drill bits he inherited from his dad all to be turned into.....? Don't know. Maybe woodwork had something to do with aggression? But whatever he was doing outback he never finished anything. And all this alleged carpentry he did, he did in a make shift structure with no electric power.
"What!" you say. "He's out there in the dark garage, by himself making small electric hand tool noises?.... Well that explains a lot about this writer and his stories."
No! A cord ran from a plug in the house that already had the mixer, can opener, transistor radio with a clock and electric egg beater jammed into it. And this cord, which looked like he got it from the same place he got the drill bits from, powered a light bulb in the center of the garage over his 57 Ford. A light that didn't shine but oozed a glow that barely eked out a shadow from my dad doing.....well here again, ????
And everything my dad had that he thought was important was in that garage. Every tool he borrowed, bought or inherited was on the walls around felt pen likenesses or strewn across his work bench. Boxes and bags sat on racks or hung from nails on all the walls to keep them off the dirt floor. The rafters were filled with long boards of every width, length and thickness, all collected over time all to be used for.......? Direct lighting over to Dads workbench was impossible from that bulb. It barely lobed a faint glow across a crowded void and hinted illumination.
Suggested shadows were everywhere. It would of been scary if we could of seen better. But here in this gloom not fifty feet from a modern bright kitchen my Dad chose to risk personal injury and possible dismemberment doing whatever it was he did with electric tools that were tens of years behind in development of kitchen gadgets. It hasn't been till recent years that lights have shown up on hand held power tools.
Why did moms tools have lights and dads tools didn't? Was it that man saw no need for a sissy little light to protect his digits and appendages. Me man, get me drink and hammer, me fix. Or, was it that a tool with a light would have to come with instruction on how to change the bulb and knowing man and written word it would of been a useless feature after a few months.
Or was it that women were the first inventing all kitchen gadgets and thought a light with a makeup mirror on every kitchen Doodad would always have them at the ready to have them looking their 'June Cleaver' best in any cooking situation. But the aging uninterested male scientists at Westinghouse thought because of high costs, it was more important for just the light to be featured and to be placed correctly to ensure rather a speedy and well made dish than a hot mama dish.
Never did we hear "Cindy hold the flashlight at the edge of the bowl so mommy can see how smooth the batter is." Or, "It's Shake and Bake and I held the flashlight!"
But for boys, holding the flashlight is our introduction into home repair. And it got so you could get good at it and know where dad would need it to point and he was proud of you.
Women knew the need for proper lighting to get a job done. If it had been up to men you would still need a flashlight to look in the fridge or oven. We men power up the tools but under power the lights. No matter where you work on a car, even today, you have to have an extra light.
It wasn't until my Dad had past away, at his funeral a woman I had never seen who worked for an orphanage came up to me and spoke so glowingly of my Dad. It was then I knew what he must of been doing all those many hours in his dimly lit garage. This lady assured me that wasn't the case.
I still had no idea what he was doing back there.
It wasn't till Mom sold the place and they knocked over the garage and dug a new foundation that..... nope not even then.
It was years later, I found myself at home down in a dark part of the basement that I had burrowed out for myself. It was a small corner surrounded by boxes that gave the illusion of protecting walls. Overhead hung a bare lightbulb that had the same amount of watts that I had years. I was working on something that I knew I could never fix but felt the need to try. Upstairs I could hear my wife on the phone to her sister. They were into their second hour of this and that filled with gossip. All three kids were either at the computer, TV, stereo, XBox or in the bathroom. It was then when I reached over to turn on the hockey game from an old transistor radio that sat in our kitchen that I had inherited from my Mom that I knew what Dad was doing in the garage out back. Under the luxury of long shadows a light clicked on.

Bob Niles