By Staff
Many years ago, when I was able-bodied, I loved to go out in the local woods mushrooming.
In a woods in back of an old farmhouse was a trash dump, which I presumed was the farmer's own private one.
Well, lucky me, I found some things for my pack-rat collection.
In addition to several old glass milk bottles from Dowagiac Farmers Dairy, I found one from Producers Dairy, Benton Harbor, a quart bottle with the name embossed in the glass.
Another half-pint bottle was from Sprague Dairy, Flint.
I also found an old white enamel chamber pot (or slop jar) with what looked like a .22-caliber rifle bullet hole in the side.
Can't remember how many mushrooms I found that day, but my trip wasn't a waste with the goodies I acquired.
Of course, my child-bride wife had to come up with the idea of putting flowers in it.
I think she filled it with red geraniums or begonias.
After she did her florist piece, I set it on top of another treasure of mine.
It was an old milk can painted black that I was going to have my son Terry paint a nice red cardinal on the side (never got done).
We had this in our back yard for quite a few years by our little windmill.
Then one day I discovered my slop jar was gone.
I hope the dirty culprit who stole it is happy with it, but I was thankful he didn't steal my big milk can. Probably too heavy to carry very far.
Something I've wondered about was why, when my mother used to put up fruit and tomatoes and other things in jars, not cans, was it called canning?
To me it wasn't canned, but put in Mason glass jars and sealed with a rubber gasket that was screwed on top of the jar with a zinc screw cap.
Those old Mason jars were reused year after year.
In a bunch of old ones my wife found in our Michigan basement she washed up some and sold them in one of her garage sales.
She found that one of them was an amber color. In researching bottles at the library, she found the amber one was worth a lot more than the white or the bluish colored ones.
When she put it out for $18, which was half-price in the book she had researched, a gentleman couldn't wait to write her a check fast enough.
A few days later, after her sale, one of our neighbors who was at her sale said, "Peggy, we saw the amber Mason jar you sold is now for sale over at Cassopolis at the Haymarket Barn for over $100."
Just our luck.
Remember how folks used to seal their jars of jam or jelly with melted paraffin wax?