Mother's Down-Home Country Lore

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Jean also suggests using two "tab handles"—on opposite sides—for your large-mouthed jam jars. "Even my small children open these containers without making a mess," she adds.

If you grit your teeth when it's time to wax and buff those rustic hardwood floors, you might want to try Jan Hume's system: "The Young People's Buffing Party".

"The action starts," says the Warsaw, New Yorker, "after the furniture's all pushed aside and you've laid a milky cloud of new wax across your clean floor. All you do is gather up your young'uns (along with any neighbor children you can get to `drop over') and have the urchins dress up in woolly socks and broken-in playclothes. Then turn the little folk loose in that waxy room . . . to do all the runnin' and slippin' and slidin' and stompin' and dancin' and rasslin' and carryin' on that you're always telling them NOT to do! The neighboring tykes will pitch right in like Tom Sawyer's cronies, and before long you'll have a human buffer over every comer of the floor.

"The next—and most vital—step," Jan adds, "is to retreat to your kitchen and mix up a batch of cookies and some cocoa. Not only will that task preserve your sanity amid the craziness of the buffing party . . . but the homemade goodies will likely be the only way to get the youngsters to quit before they wear your floor out!"

"My friends and I," says Madison, Wisconsin's Richard Zimman, "buy all our overalls, jackets, and work clothes in the fall. The new wearin's are stiff and thick, so they help keep us warm through winter. And, when those hot summer days roll around, the same—now broken-in —garments `breathe' well and keep us cool."

Such a lot of readers sent in this next idea that it just plain has to work! So please believe that Linda Krosting speaks for many when the St. Paul, Minnesotan says: "Don't waste money on expensive—and overrated—commercial window cleaners! Just mix up a small amount of ordinary cornstarch in water—about a tablespoon of powder per quart of liquid—and soak a rag in the solution. Wash your glass objects with this cloth and dry 'em with old newspaper. The windows and mirrors will sparkle like they've been polished. And (unless you've used too much cornstarch) your clean glass will show absolutely no streaking!"

"Have you ever knitted a sweater . . . only to have one arm turn out longer than the other?" asks Knoxville, Tennessee's Laura Hendricks. "There's an easy way to insure that both pieces of anything you make in pairs—mittens, sleeves, booties, etc.—will be of equal size. Simply use a long needle ... and knit the two sleeves (or whatever) at the same time."

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