Friday Afternoons

Friday afternoons were joyous occasions for all the kids. They made all kinds of noise laughing and singing songs on the bus ride home. I was pretty quiet on Fridays. Fridays loomed ahead for me like a black cloud all week. My mother baked rolls, cakes, cookies, pies and an assortment of things that she sold to the grocery store in town.
Before my mother started selling baked goods, my mother gave me an allowance of ten cents a week. That was for doing my chores all week without complaining and helping her do things that she asked me to do other than my regular chores. When she started baking, my allowance increased to thirty five cents a week. The extra twenty five cents was for doing all the baking pans that she had dirtied that day.
When she told me about the increase I readily agreed. I was excited about the extra money, and I also loved the things that she baked for us every week.
Then reality hit the very first Friday afternoon when I came home there were stacks of dirty pans and dishes waiting for me. I was shocked and I told her so. She told me that she had done a lot of dishes during the day and what was waiting for me was just a fraction of what had been used that day.
I think I was ten years old when I started doing dishes for my big increase in allowance. I found out that she was really particular in cleanliness. The caramel from the rolls stuck like glue, the angel food cake pans were really hard to wash. I can remember complaining a lot. She sat me down and had a really serious talk about finances. She said that it was my responsibility to help the family any way I could. She and my daddy were doing there part, so I had to share in the work load. My sister was gone and married by then so there was no one else to share those dirty dishes with.
I made the best of a bad situation. When I was asked what I was going to do when I got home I just said I thought I would help my mom in the kitchen. The kids kind of groaned, but they bought it.
My mom gave me a little change purse of hers. It was black silk with a gold clasp. I didn’t have a dresser of my own, so she said I could keep it in one of her dresser drawers. My dad said that it was up to me how I spent the money, however, since I had such a big allowance, they would not be giving me any money for movies or popcorn when we went to town. He also said that if I saved some of my money, when Christmas time came he would match whatever I had saved. In this day and age that would be a privately run 401K.
Time went on, the summer was hot, no air conditioning. We had one small fan my mother had in the kitchen. She had two stoves running spring, summer, fall and winter. Finally Christmas time came. I had saved over six dollars. When I think of it now, I am sure it hurt their budget to hand over six dollars to me, but Dad did it with a smile and told me how proud he was of me. I spent every last cent on Christmas presents for my family. I was so proud.
I remember I bought my dad a bright red tie with a yellow horn in the middle of it. He wore it to church and got a lot of ribbing about it, but he just smiled and said, “my daughter bought it for me for Christmas.” I also bought my mother a new housedress. It cost almost three dollars. It was so pretty it was pink with little white flowers on it. She wore it out. She either loved it or had little else to wear. I don’t remember what else I bought, but that was my best Christmas ever. It was so worth doing a few dishes so that I could make my family happy on Christmas. When my father died, my mother got into one of his dresser drawers and handed the bright red tie to me and said, “do you remember this?” The tears streamed down my cheeks. He had thought enough of that tie to save it for over twenty years.