It Was 1972....

In 1972 The Vietnam War was raging. I was a mother of a four year old daughter and a two year old son. Our family of four was a small family that lived in a small town. My husband's large family was raised in this small town. Some of his brothers and one sister still lived there. We had lots of fun with them. I remember one day an elderly gentleman came to my door and asked, "Does this young man belong to you? I figured he did because he had red hair and he is a Grafing." That's how small the town was. The townsfolk also knew how busy he was.
In 1972 long distance was expensive. Folks on the low end of the salary ladder like us didn't use it unless it was necessary. We didn't just chat we had a purpose ie., "Hi mom, I need some help with my buttonholes." Go ahead and laugh, but in those days, when you made a coat, the buttonholes had to be "bound button holes" or some people call them French buttonholes. The reason that they "had" to be bound buttonholes is because they made the coats look very expensive. The last thing you wanted people to think was that your clothing looked"homemade".
My friends and family knew that I sewed. Other family members sewed also for themselves and/or their children. I used up the scraps of material from my clothes to make my kids clothing. It was fun. Of course, my husband was pleased that his children had nice clothing, and not hand-me-downs. He would not let me buy yard sale clothing because he had had  nothing but used clothing when he was a child and that "was not going to happen to my kids!"
The day I called Mom for help she was very nice. I think it pleased her to be able to help me. We lived about 2-3 hours apart. The more she talked, the more confused I got. The coats for Melanie and I were for Easter and I wanted them to be as perfect as I could get them. Finally I think Mom knew that telling me on the phone wasn't cutting it. She said, "I tell you what, I'll make one and send it to you. You can look at it, tear it apart if you need to. I will also send you the directions. It will be much easier if you can read and see the finished product at the same time." Little did she know.
Today, I turned to YouTube and watched a video with a lady showing us how to make bound buttonholes. She took her time. The video was 7 minutes long. Just watching the video made me antsy. Listening to my mother forty-eight years ago made me extremely antsy. I made those buttonholes and they looked pretty good. I wore the coat gingerly that Easter Sunday, fearful that there may be a wardrobe malfunction. There was none that showed.

 The elderly people at church told Melanie how pretty she looked in her pretty yellow coat with matching dress. Someone had given her a piece of candy and she had gotten sticky fingers. I reached in my coat pocket to get a tissue and discovered that I had forgotten to sew the pocket in my coat completely together. I wonder where those tissues went that I had put in there before we left. (Not a joke!)