Here are a couple of my Big Hoover memories. Most of you have probably read them already, but it's my birthday so I get to bore you, haha!
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One time, when I was 4 or 5, we visited my Uncle in Maryland (the same one who, many years later, would buy a Kirby from me). I was in Heaven there as he and my aunt had more vacuum cleaners than anyone I knew! They had an old upright Royal that I was afraid of because it looked like a Kirby, then a tan Hoover Constellation, some kind of porta-vac (GE maybe?), a Singer hand vac, and one of those huge commercial Hoovers with an enormous, fat pin-striped bag -- the kind you would often see in theatres, churches, etc.
My cousin Jackie still teases me about how when we were visiting, I brought that big Hoover outside from the garage where it was stored, and vacuumed their entire cement driveway with it! With the motor running!! For some reason I fell in love with that huge old sweeper, and the entire time we were there I dropped very broad hints about how we had "only one sweeper and you have a lot of them," and how I would love to take it home.
When we got ready to leave, I had my little suitcase in one hand and was rolling the big Hoover out with the other hand. Mama told me I had to put the sweeper back. I looked at my uncle hopefully. He said, catching Mama's frantic 'NO!' expression, "Why don't we leave it here, and whenever you come to visit us you can use it."
Well, I started bawling and crying, just utterly despondent and FURIOUS that I could not take the Hoover home with us! There was no consoling me, and I stewed and pouted about it for several days.
Another uncle was a pastor at a large church in Richmond. One time when we went there, the custodian was vacuuming the front area of the sanctuary with one of those big commercial Hoover uprights. I asked him, "Would you mind if I helped you run the sweeper?"
Mind?! He gladly handed the duty over to me and I spent the entire morning vacuuming the expansive sea of carpeting in the large vestibule, then pushed it inside the auditorium and did all the carpeting in there as well!
