VINTAGE THURSDAY

I love looking in on all the links to the different “days” on other folks’ blogs---Vintage Thursday is today, and this is my first attempt to post pictures of any of the houseful of “stuff” which we’ve accumulated over the years.

My camera angles are always skewed---I have not the eye for composition which is given to most of the wonderful photographers I enjoy dropping in on every day, and anything I snap has either a cockeyed angle, weird lighting, or an intrusive shadow somewhere.

And so, this picture looks as if I’ve crammed a whole bedroom into one of those little Rent-a-Storage places, about 8x8, rolled up the little door, and snapped a very unflattering picture.

The room is a standard ranch bedroom, cozy and comfortable, but when I see something which would “go” in there, especially something in Goodwill, I just toss it in my basket and put it out amongst the other things. And though the size of the room does not allow such decorating fads, the bed IS catty-cornered for ease of spreading and getting into and out of, thus taking up more of the visual room of the room. Thus the pictures look a bit crowded.

This was the guest room in my parents’ house for WAY years back---always called, “Mammaw’s room” for my Dad’s Mother, who came to stay with us for several months every year.. And then, after Daddy sold our family home, the furniture came here and it became and still is, “Daddy’s Room,” even after all these years since his passing.

On the wardrobe on the left is part of my childhood Blue Willow teaset, long lost and then found in my parents’ big cedar closet, snugged way back into the back of a wide shelf. It is one of the only two “toys” I have from my childhood, and two of the cups have the whisper of a dolltea stain in the bottom which I cannot bear to wash out.

The little blue chair is a Fifties’ model, one of those Jetson-shaped little geometrical things with four stick-legs, originally covered in a shades-of-green vinylish fabric. The chair was left to Caro by her other grandmother, and not long ago she zipped out a neat blue slipcover, pillow, tassels and all, from a lovely big panel of somebody’s living room drapes (also from Goodwill).

The long rows of old-fashioned pictures and samplers and cross-stitch are from various sources---the wardrobe picture on the right, the house in the pink frame, and the small brick building below all my own work---the wardrobe with its elegant hanging gown stitched for my parents’ Fiftieth Anniversary and brought home with me years later when our childhood home was sold.

The little praying girl hung in the hallway of the house I grew up in, along with a pair of those sad-eyed little children (possibly on velvet---I’ve tried to put them out of my mind entirely). The photograph of cotton blooms is from the field just beside our old house.

The picture just to the left of the green oval frame is a Valentine made by my Dad and sent to my Mother during WWII---the faded paper lace and the little open book in the top corner were all glued onto a sheet of cardboard from who-knows-where-he-was, the book centered by a tiny metal star---one from the center of a medal he’d earned. I try to think of the night-time moments as he put the pretty little arrangement together, and where he got the doily-lace, and the thick small book-shape, and the idea of removing the tiny brass star from his marksman's medal---I knew his hands were talented with woodworking and all sorts of creative endeavors, but I'd never thought of those gnarled old fingers handling such delicate and dainty materials.

And what must have been the reaction when my Mother opened that fat letter, standing there in the crowded Post Office with all the other eager-for-news families of soldiers. The whole thing was leafed between the pages of one of those musty old black-paged scrapbooks---a little faded, but no frays or tears anywhere, and I couldn’t resist framing it. It's the only tangible thing besides pictures that I have to confirm that my parents were young and in love and expressed it to each other.

And yes, that's me-at-three---I'm smiling, I think, but I'd been crying because the photographer insisted that I take off my blouse for the "cameo" shot, and people were looking. I DO remember the embarrassment and think of it every time I look at that picture.

The room is used only for "company," and seems to take on the air of a museum set, but I just go and stand in the door and look in, drinking my eyes full of the past which was mine, mingled with the ago-times of many people never to be known.

VINTAGE THURSDAY LINK:

http://coloradolady.blogspot.com/