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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 95/125

How well 'I remember when I first saw and heard a radio. Mr. Wimberly and his wife

had opened up a little country store and were the first ones in our community who bought a
radio. They insisted that everyone come to their store to listen to their radio.
Pa was real interested in listening to the news. He took us to Mr. Wimberly’s store
after supper one night a week. I really thought that was something big! I still remember just

how that radio looked. I was just amazed that the sound of people talking, singing, and
playing musical instruments came out of that box. Until this day, I’m still stupid about
airwaves and such things. Science has made great progress during my lifetime.
We began hearing that airplanes were coming into existence and that people could fly

to wherever they wanted to go in a very short time. People said how silly it was to believe
that something as big as an airplane would actually stay up in the air. It wasn’t too long after
we had heard these rumors that someone came by our house and said that an airplane had

landed down in Tim Witt’s cornfield. Pa took us over to see this strange flying contraption.
Sure enough, a pilot in a small plane had made an emergency landing because of engine
trouble. The pilot got someone from Lake City to fix the engine that afternoon;, and he 1'eft
the next morning.
And talk about prices! When I was a kid, we could buy a loaf of bread hot at the

bakery in Lake City for five cents, a soda pop for five cents, and sewing fabric for five and
ten cents a yard. A nickel bought enough stamps to mail a letter and two postcards. Gas was

eleven cents a gallon, and we bought a brand new Chevy coupe for $600.
I was bom before all of these inventions: penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox
machines, plastic, contact lenses, the tpill, radar, credit cards, lasers, telephones, ball-point
pens, panty hose, dishwashers, washing machines, clothes dryers, electric blankets, aif

conditioners, drip-dry clothes, computers, rockets to outer space. I was 61 years old when
man walked on the moon.

In the early years of my marriage, I wanted to learn how to sew so I could make my

own clothes. I had watched Ma sew; she had taught me how to hem and do hand sewing so I
could save her time. She taught me how to embroider. She made Opal and Fay little dresses
and gave them to me to embroider whatever I wanted.

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