You should have seen me picking vegetables yesterday. Well, then again, I’m glad you didn’t. I was on my way to check the berry patch and thought I’d check the veggies, too, thinking I’d get a few ripe ones. After picking through rows of tomato, squash and cucumbers, I was wishing I had on a big, old fashioned apron instead of the tank top I wore. 

Maybe you know the aprons I’m talking about — wide enough to wrap around and make a pouch to carry things. I got to thinking about my favorite poem about aprons that I shared a while back. And about you still cooking during these troubled times.

The poem talks about times when aprons were not a fashion statement, but a necessity. Sort of like today, don’t you think? 

The apron 

When I cook, I put on my oldest apron, the one worn and dotted with stains. Aprons are not only clothing, but a piece of history. Stains are remembrances of time spent in the kitchen cooking for loved ones. 

Back in the day, Grandma’s apron served more than just protection to clothing.

• It was used as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.
• The apron was perfect for drying children’s tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.
• From the chicken coop, the apron was used to carry eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
• When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.
• When the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms.
• Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over a hot wood stove.
• Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
• From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out hulls.
• In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples fallen from the trees.
• When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in seconds. 

• When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out to the porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that “old-time apron” that served many purposes.

PS – I don’t know who the author is.