Mothers and Keys

[Guest guest]

In reading the posts this morning, I was reminded of the times when I

was a child. Both my mother and my grandmother always had a door key on

their person.

In my grandmother's case, it was the key to the basement pantry. She

kept the key on a string that she tied to her bra strap. The house was

left open, but the food stores were locked up. She lived out in the

sticks she used to say. She had a 70 little farm in Virginia. My Nana

always used to say, " If someone wants to break into my house, they are

going to come in whether the front door is locked or not. If they need

what little I have then they are worse off than me, so they can have it.

They can have the food left in the icebox in the kitchen, but they

aren't getting the food in the pantry! "

Now my mother was a different story. Her door to this day stays locked.

Even if she is just working out in the yard, she locks the door behind

her. She lives on the corner of a busy street where people walk by on

the sidewalk. When we were kids, one day a man just walked into our

house and demanded my mother give him some food. She did and he left,

but that was the end to her open door policy. My mother still has a

house key on a diaper pin (same diaper pin from when my youngest sister

was a year old) and she pins the key into the bottom of her pocket.

I don't carry a house key with me, but I learned the hard way to keep a

house key hidden outside.

thanks for the memories..

" Rion "