Utilizing Some Of Those Home Ec Skills...

 Have you ever darned a sock?

I don't mean using the non-profane type of damning a sock. No, I mean, have you ever taken a sock with a hole in it (other than the one where you insert your foot...) and some thread and repaired the damaged sock?

The older I get, the memories of my childhood make me feel as if I was born in the nineteenth century. Don't believe me? Consider this...

My mother used to make my school shirts. 

I put bread bags on my feet before I put them in my winter boots.

I wore hand-knitted mittens.

And, I took Home Ec in jr. high school.

Do they even teach home economics anymore? I recall taking the class from Mrs. Allen in 7th grade at Kaysville Jr. High. I remember the name because the teacher was the mother of a classmate of ours (funny, how you remember some things and not others...). Back then, to a bunch of pre-teen boys, home ec was, well...in a word, girlie. I mean, they sewed in that class, after all.

Turns out, I liked it. I remember learning how to sew fabric together. We made stuffed animals...picked out the fabric and the patterns. We cut out the faces, hands, and feet, and sewed them onto the animals. I made a hippopotamus and I kept it on my bed (TMI, I know...). 

I also learned how to darn a sock.

Fast forward almost half a century. I've had socks wear out--they all do, eventually. Did I repair them? Did I utilize those Home Ec skills? Nope, not once. I toss the socks and when enough socks have enough holes, and when that happens, I pick up a new package of socks at Walmart and the whole process begins all over again.

Last week I put on a relatively new t-shirt, one of my good ones. It was then I noticed a space between the collar and the shirt. I thought it was a smudge, but nope--it was a hole. I found some white thread and a needle and I fixed it. Simple as that.

I've often wondered if we'll turn back to the time when we darned our socks, repaired damaged stuff, make our own clothes. Maybe we'll be living like my parents did when they grew up, which was during the Great Depression. Maybe one day we'll all need to use those Home Ec skills...

Whether we were taught them at school or not.