Re: NNG: Granny's Lye Soap ...

weston1879 Wrote:
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> Gosh,and I really wanted to find out about
> Granma's petticoat!! I hear she dyed it GREEN.

IIRC, Granny's Lye Soap was also green. There was a song about it on the flip side of Johnny Standly's interpretation of 'Little Bo Peep' - a poem written about a 4-H livestock project that went horribly awry, and that's way too long to repeat here. The song went something like this:

Do you remember   Granny's Lye Soap   good for every   thing in the home?
And the secret   was in the scrubbing   it wouldn't suds   and couldn't foam.

Little Herman   and brother Sherman   had an aversion   to washing their ears.
Granny scrubbed them   with the Lye Soap   and they haven't heard   a word in years!

Mrs. O'Malley   out in the valley   suffered from ulcers   I understand.
She swallowed a cake   of Granny's Lye Soap,   now she has the cleanest ulcers   in the land!!

*****

Jim Poston got us some Granny's Lye Soap to use on #489's boiler jacket back in May when we were prepping her for the Dark Olive Green paint, and it did a really good job. SFAIK, the jacket is still green, although it's hard to see under the soot.  We ran out while cleaning #487 in August, which is why the Tuscan Red latex didn't adhere too well to the sides of the cab. It's a good thing that Rich Murray and his son Mike were there to help touch things up and repair the lettering, or we wouldn't have had "#483" ready for the weekend!

- Russo