Whoa. I found a piece of string the other day. Just lying there on the carpet. About a yard long, too. I picked it up and ran it through my fingers. String! I hadn't seen any in years. It was like an artifact. I drifted in time. Arthur Godfrey murmured from the melamine radio; bottles of milk were at the back door, and a Fuller Brush man was at the front. I don't know where this string came from. It may have originated somewhere else in the house, and was relocated courtesy our cat Tater, who was responding to her Rodent Tail Facsimile Identification chromosome.
When I was a kid there was more string around. You could buy it in balls. People used to use it to tie up packages to be mailed, after first wrapping them in brown paper. Dave picked up a giant roll of kraft paper--seriously, we could Christo the house in it, twice--around 1980, right about when the post office began discouraging people from using paper and string. It would have been two lifetime supplies if you were born in 1900, but now it should last into the second coming. When I started with the post office in 1977, the guys used twine to bundle up their mail. I'd watch the old geezers slam together a perfectly straightened bunch of mail and take the twine and whip it around, once, twice, and twice more widthwise, then snap it off using the twine itself as a cutter. The whole bundle was secured in three seconds flat. It was a beauty to behold. "I'll be able to do that someday," I said to myself, keeping to my life strategy of small ambitions, but in fact I never did learn to do that. I dented up my fingers trying to snap it off for a few months and then we went over entirely to rubber bands, except for the old farts, who guarded their twine stash as though it were their very youth and glory.
The thing about string is that it's almost impossible to throw away. That's a staple of obsessive-compulsive comedy: the string hoarder. You develop a character that lives with nineteen cats and saves string, that's all you really need to know about that person. Mom saved string, although I don't believe she'd save it if it were under two feet in length. She was Depression-thrifty but she wasn't nuts. Unless you think maintaining a linen closet packed floor to ceiling with toilet paper is nuts. But toilet paper was among the things strictly rationed during World War II, and the entire experience brought her lots of clarity about the important things in life. (Sacrificing during wartime is another one of those artifacts, like string and bottled milk at the back door. Back in the day, they didn't even think about putting the whole war on the credit card. They were backward that way.)
Mom used string for packaging and odd jobs and keeping the roast beef from getting away. I couldn't think of anything I would need a yard of string for. Roast beef must not be as unruly as it used to be. And Dave has this thing about clutter. He is not a knick-knack guy. He would like to have a house he could clean with a fire hose, although if he actually had a house like that he'd just have to find something else to be obsessive about. At any rate he is unlikely to be enthused about a string collection. So I coiled the string around my fingers to throw it away, but then I set it down. It's on the windowsill. In case we need it. You can't throw away string. We've probably got a chromosome for that.
When I was a kid there was more string around. You could buy it in balls. People used to use it to tie up packages to be mailed, after first wrapping them in brown paper. Dave picked up a giant roll of kraft paper--seriously, we could Christo the house in it, twice--around 1980, right about when the post office began discouraging people from using paper and string. It would have been two lifetime supplies if you were born in 1900, but now it should last into the second coming. When I started with the post office in 1977, the guys used twine to bundle up their mail. I'd watch the old geezers slam together a perfectly straightened bunch of mail and take the twine and whip it around, once, twice, and twice more widthwise, then snap it off using the twine itself as a cutter. The whole bundle was secured in three seconds flat. It was a beauty to behold. "I'll be able to do that someday," I said to myself, keeping to my life strategy of small ambitions, but in fact I never did learn to do that. I dented up my fingers trying to snap it off for a few months and then we went over entirely to rubber bands, except for the old farts, who guarded their twine stash as though it were their very youth and glory.
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"...putting the whole war on credit card..."
ReplyDeleteSo *that's* why they invented plastic. It wasn't all about explosives after all. Who knew...
Tater is a clone of our Jazz. Who is baaaad. Think a cat who has learned to open the fridge and then taught the other resident moggy. And both of them love string. Short pieces, long pieces, its all good. Though Jewel is also partial to rubber bands. And acorn shells.
ReplyDeleteString has been replaced by duct tape, I guess. Sad, really. I too remember string. Tanya still uses it in the garden for tying flowers and tomatoes to stakes.
ReplyDeleteBe careful though, have you read Guy de Maupassant's A Piece of String?
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/PiecStri.shtml
You're right. No strings attached or attached with no strings.
ReplyDeleteShe was Depression-thrifty but she wasn't nuts.
ReplyDeleteMy grandparents were the same way about throwing nothing away and triple that about toilet paper. They raised me and more than a little of their thrifty-ness had worn off on me and I often go ballistic when I see my wife or kids waste something.
Bakery string - don't forget the striped bakery string! Or was that only at Italian bakeries in NJ?
ReplyDeleteWe never have string lying around, but with my knitting habit, there's always random pieces of yarn on the floor. And my husband is like Dave - he hates clutter and knick knacks. Which is a hard thing when you live in a small house with four short people.
ReplyDeleteI had to buy a little twine not long ago, and trying to find it in the store was really a challenge: it was tucked on a wall display behind the needles and thread. I didn't see any string there, tough. I forgot about how ubiquitous it was back in the day.
ReplyDeleteNot only did I need some string recently - for hanging a picture - but I found a ball of it easily in the supermarket. We Brits have to make sure string is always available, just so questions like "How long is a piece of string?" remain functional.
ReplyDeleteIt was a sad day when I took my package to the post office, only to be told, "We can't accept packages tied with string. You'll have to tape over it."
ReplyDeleteSigh.
My aunt and uncle had a store. A general store where you could buy boots and bullets and flour and eggs and gas, and it wasn't anything at all like WalMart. Behind the counter there was a huge roll of butcher paper on a dispenser with a built-in cutting edge, and right next to it was a spindle with a spool of string, and its very own sharp blade. "A pound of ground meat, please." Strrrrip....off came a piece of paper exactly the right size. Scooooop....a mound of ground beef from the bulk bin in the glass meat case. Splat! Onto the paper, which went onto the scale and miraculously came to precisely one pound. Flap, wrap, and round about with a piece of that string. Slight jerking motion to cut the piece from the spool. Quick knot. "Anything else?" "Nope. Put it on the bill." And off home up the hill I'd run with the meat so Mom could make her excellent meatloaf or porcupine balls or beefaroni. *sigh* String. Evocative. Thanks, Murr.
ReplyDeletePardon me. I just stepped out to laytonwoman's aunt's general store. Back now...
ReplyDeleteGood gravy, woman. Apparently there is no random topic you can't make entertaining! (All the while managing to slip in poignant or astute observations.) Write on, Murr!
ReplyDeleteJust this morning Dr. M was talking about needing to buy a new ball of string. Last summer, tying up the tomatoes, he had finally used up the string purchased in 1995 to use to tie up Swiss Chicken Rollups. Those tomatoes aren't going to just stand up on their own, you know!
ReplyDeleteMy family once used string to play a game at a family reunion. Seriously. A ball of twine was passed around, and people were told to cut off a piece, whatever length. Well, you can see where that leads--folks with issues took really long pieces, some took eensy bitty pieces, etc.
ReplyDeleteThen, came the instruction. Wind the piece of string on your finger at a steady pace, all the while telling us things about yourself.
HA! The long and the short of it was we learned more about uncles, aunts and cousins than we ever thought possible.
But it sure was fun.
I have a huge spool of cotton string on my table as I write this. I use it at work all the time. We make bracelets with beads. Knotted bracelets without beads. This week I used it as faux fishing line for some bamboo fishing poles we're using for summer decorations at work. We use it for three games I can think of off the top of my head.
ReplyDeleteI'm not stringing you along, either. I work with kids.
It just occurred to me that I haven't seen string in a store in ages. I had no idea it had gone away.
ReplyDeleteI love this. I didn't know string was passe, either, because I have baling twine and balls of jute and bits and pieces of it stashed away everywhere, even in the cereal cabinet. I also have a big roll of brown kraft paper and an old old stand with a heavy bar that you rrrrip it off on. I always used to wrap my art in brown paper when I'd send it out. I don't do that any more because I don't send it out much at all. Digital photography and local scanning has taken care of that. This post sent me down a lane, too, and I enjoyed my visit to laytonwoman's aunt's store, too, and now I want some porcupine balls over rice.
ReplyDeleteSee, that's something magical about string. It only brings forth cool memories. I'm much enjoying this particular comment string, er, thread. Although I'm not in the loop about porcupine balls. I'm visualizing a very crude crudite, sort of a kebob on its own toothpick.
ReplyDeleteAvid remodeler that I am, I still use string on a semi-regular basis. For example, setting up a fence and getting those posts all lined up. Of course we used to use strings for kites... we called it kite string and the guy at the variety store knew exactly what we wanted. It would always break when the kit was 400' up there and the kite would float down in someone's back yard two neighborhoods away. What the hell, the kits only cost 10 cents back then anyway. The string... THAT was expensive.
ReplyDeleteYeah... where is string when you need it? I need to tie up my tomatoes. Couldn't find any string anywhere. Had to use an old pair of shoe laces. Thank God shoes still have laces. Any more Velcro on my clothes and I'm gonna go... Postal!
ReplyDeletePorcupine meatballs are little meatballs with raw rice mixed into the meat mixture before the balls are cooked. During the cooking (in a sauce, usually tomato based), the rice swells up and ends up sticking out of the meat like little spines.
ReplyDeleteAs long as I'm following this string, my obligatory joke, as a little kid, was, "What did the porcupine say when it backed into the cactus?" . . . "Is that you, Mother?" I learned this at an early age, and was prompted to tell it numerous times before I ever understood it.
Oh. That sounds like something my mother would have made, except the tomato sauce would be too spicy. Something beiger, maybe.
ReplyDeleteIt might come in handy for entertainment. You could always tie it to the cat's tail and see what happens. Video tape that and post it to YouTube. It might go viral and make your famous.
ReplyDeleteIf I tie a piece of string to THIS cat's tail, it might make me homeless.
ReplyDeleteMy partner has a box of string, which is a just like a box of rain, which you Deader folks might remember, which is stored right under the scary springs of the garage door opener. Every once in awhile, the keeper of the string allows me to use a piece or two for very important projects.
ReplyDeleteYou've strung us a delightful tale, Murr. And, after reading it, I don't feel strung out at all.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
String! I'd clean forgotten about it. A technology from a bygone era, like cuneiform or VHS. Show a modern person under 30 a piece of string, and he'd probably ask how the USB connector got cut off the end.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it would be different if I had a cat. They're techno-conservatives.
Child, I wish I could do that. You noticed a piece of string on the floor and entertained me royally for whole minutes in a row. It's a technique I'll have to try, writing about whatever comes to hand. I (akin to Dave, perhaps) tend to obsess too much on any subject I consider, beating it into an unrecognizable word pulp that I can hardly wring a post out of.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, if we want string for something--and it's surprising how often we do, but we're fond of climbing vines and that explains most of it--we have to make a trip to Lowes or the kite store. That's messed up, that is.
I remember string around while I was growing up but I was usually out of it dissociating in my screwed up family. I do remember the brown paper on packages with string and lots of knots at every juncture.
ReplyDeleteAnd as the child in the family, it was your job to sacrifice your index finger by holding the string intersection down while Mommy finished the knot. Right?
ReplyDeleteAh, string. My Dad had been a King's Scout and could do the most wonderful things with string, knot-wise. Brooms, dustpans and mops hung off hooks with string loops. We went to a store exactly like Laytonwoman's with the paper and string setup. The bakery made a loop on the top of the box which became a handle to carry it home. And I still have on hand - and use - several thicknesses of string. Our roasts still try to run away, the hollyhocks try to follow them and a string & hook configuration keeps my son's dog from eating the catfood when he's over but allows the cat to get into her noshery. Good one, Murr. I've been wandering all over memory lane since reading this.
ReplyDelete"Roast beef must not be as unruly as it used to be." Surprising, considering all the steroids they pump into it now...
ReplyDeleteMy Grandma used to save aluminum foil (as well as string)...she'd just fold it up and put it in the drawer after she was finished.
Wendy
When my mom married my dad she moved into the his family home and also inherited an older bachelor cousin living in the house, too. Both men had lived during the Depression and according to my mom the cousin saved everything. Early in their marriage she was cleaning out the pantry cupboards and found a box labeled "string too short to save."
ReplyDeleteThis I adore.
ReplyDelete