Coming Clean-

Old Fashioned Soap Making

I take my education for granted, and Dr. P thinks I'm to smart. Hum...curious, that.  Anyway- I don't think it is so much native intelligence as that I *pay attention* to things and remember them, and for that gift I owe a dept not to any formal education, but to my parents.  My parents were/are curious about almost everything- and, even though we lived on modest means, not only satisfied their curiosity through reading/watching, but took the time and effort to explore and experience. There is not enough of that today, I think- we have the whole world at our fingertips thanks to technology (and I am it's hugest fan!) but we forget that the experience of exploration is important to.  It is not enough to virtually visit or learn things, or to have them distilled and recounted in a classroom... I miss that component of going and doing.  And not so much school field trips, which end up usually being nasty awkward things full of structured quickpace timelines and kids sneaking off to get high in the bathroom.  Or maybe that's just cause I get bus-sick and have had bad experiences..... but on to the good experiences and why I am talking about this.

Yesterday, in my fourth block advanced art class, we were reviewing and talking about how paint is made and different ways of cleaning it up, which brought us to soap.  And then one of my students asked, "What is soap anyway?  I mean, I *know* what it is- but how do they make it?  The bar stuff?"... and it stopped me cold.  I don't know why I found it so astonishing that the did not know how to make soap or what it was made of... in the back of my head I though that surely this was mentioned somewhere along the line in a history  or science class, or at the very least they had read Little House on the Prairie (nope). So I explained to them about soap making from rendered fat and lye, (and how to make lye) and from glycerine, the differences between soap and detergents blah blah blah.  It turned into a cool little lesson on history, chemistry and olfactory arts  (how does something made from such nasty ingredients end up cleaning you and smelling good?).  Then I got to thinking, well how did *I* happen to know how to make soap, and so much about it... and no, it wasn't because I was taught in history or science class, or even from reading, it was because of an experience.

My parents loved to go on small adventures- the curiosity thing- and fairs, festivals and historic 'living museums' (which were a relatively new concept in the seventies) were some of our favorite destinations.  I remember soap making from several of these but most of all from Bedford Village.  I can't swear to the timing, but they had Fall (?) festivals out there, where there were food and crafts, and demonstrations of how things were done long ago.  I was keenly interested in these things- how to create dye from plants, dip candles, card and spin wool, make soap.  I saw it being done, but more than that was the *experience* of seeing it- I remember the smells, the heat from the fire, the prickly grease of the wool and sticky cards.  I didn't do any of these things at the festival- they were demonstrations not activities- but I remembered them and tried them later.  Some of them at home- I tried to spin cotton balls (not very successfully), make dye out of plants (more success, more mess), and did learn how to make candles in an art class (never quite took to it for some reason....).  Later on in college I learned how to card, spin and weave (as long as someone else warped the loom- never had the patience for that) and make soap, though it was of the glycerine kind.

When Grendel was a kid, he grew up around some of this because of me being in school and involved with the craft business up in the mountains.  I wish now that I had taken the time to do more of the 'time travel' type festivals and places with him- we did do a few and they were important.  And he learned how to make soap like a boss- remember the great soap making year where he made it for everyone in the family for holiday and to sell at local art shops?  Paid his way to Disney World for the 8th grade trip- proud of him still for that.  Turning soap into gold, good job.  An experience that lead to another experience and so on- which is exactly the legacy that I have.  

If I had time, money, energy... especially time... I would like to do a heritage arts fair somewhere here.  Maybe Penderlea- demonstrations of soap making, tobacco staking, quilting, other local arts from long ago.  I wonder if anyone still does these things, or would even be interested enough to come... or if they are like me, to busy with lists to remember the worth of experiences.