Asafetida: that was my bag

By Peg Masters Hobrock

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805918442
• ISBN13: 9780805918441
• Release Date: January 1973
• Publisher: Dorrance & Company
• Length: 44 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A nice bag of thoughts as a child of the last century

Peg Masters Hobrock's book, "Asafetida: that was my bag," is a quaint look at life in a small town in the Mid-Atlantic during the first quarter of the 20th century. While not a full-fledged autobiography or history, Hobrock's vignettes (for that is what these short, mostly one-page pieces are) represent the memories culled from a generation that is, for the most part, no longer alive. Each tale is divided by headings like "Women's Lib," "The Telephone," and, my favorite, "Sauerkraut." The stories flit back and forth, sometimes telling us about events that obviously happened when Hobrock had reached her teenage years (the buying of four-buckled boots just to leave half unbuckled, hence being a "flapper") while others are early memories of childhood (like having sips of beer during the Sunday family gathering in pre-Prohibition days). What I really enjoyed about this surprising little book was that the reader got to see the world of the early 20th century not through the official histories and biographies that make everything seem somehow so long ago and far away and strange to our own lives today, but through the eyes of youth. One of my favorite vignettes is the story she tells about being forced to wear long-johns to school under her stockings. "We rebelled then, but not openly. As soon as we left the confines of our abode, we stopped right on the sidewalk, rolled down the hose, rolled up the underwear, and then pulled the hose up and hoped and prayed that the underwear wouldn't sneak back down on the outside of our leg - sometimes it did." Hobrock captured the essence of her childhood in her words. She showed us that whether young girls are being sneaky by wiping off their make-up before they get home or by hiding their long-johns up under their skirts, teenagers haven't changed that much in 100 years. And that is a refreshing note on human nature, indeed.