Yes, they do! In a circumscribed, roundabout way I discovered this today, whilst hunting a photo for responding to a comment from two friends' comments yesterday that THEY, TOO, make up little stories and vignettes about folks they see out and about, or sitting in the dentist's office, or across the room in line at Panera. They see more than that lady in the ill-kempt wig, or the stylish trench-coat, and travel light-years with a couple merely dipping their fries at Wendy's---we go right to where that person might be going, or what they're going home to. It's a bit of a curse with me, I guess, for I get so carried away with my mental note-making and phone-fumbling to tap out a few hints for later (NEVER A PICTURE), I miss hearing my number called or how I should be pushing my buggy forward to close up the line.
I expressed happy satisfaction that there were TWO like-minded souls admitting that quirk of the imagination, and the propensity for silent, never-uttered gossip about innocent strangers just awaiting some caffeine or the next bus. (Thank you, Merry and Jeanie) (Hearing an imaginary organ chord here, from my childhood radio "stories," when the SHADOW KNOWS ...).
And in my silly way, I likened our common trait to having the same hobbies or crafts that created a shared kinship of mind. I confessed my own lack of any hand-held skills or crafts, and my stumbly child-and-teen attempts at embroidery and crochet, to the dismay of my Mother and Mammaw Jessie---both whiz-bang at anything regarding thread, and their hardy efforts to help me learn. No such luck--I'd even set my dusty-butt shorts onto a small chair, take up thread and needle and tee-ninecy stork scissors, hold my knees together beneath my Imaginary Jane Austen skirt, and scratch away at the blue edges of ironed-on pattern ---I used the proper color Coats & Clarks, but only yielded a first-graders' swoops and swirls of their initial encounter with paper and crayolas.
Mammaw would gently and valiantly take up my tatty mess and in an hour, have a queen-worthy inch of exquisite border trim all around the dresser-scarf/pillowslip edge, shaming its shambles from my needle. I was not worthy. But my Hope Chest (a handsome cedar trunk-on-bun-feet crafted by my high-school sweetheart-husband-to-be in SHOP) was repository of all those efforts-at-style, along with elaborate lacy trim around every one of the several dozen pairs of pillowslips from our wedding shower.
The successive decades have occasioned many a careful removal and re-stitchal of almost every one of the beautiful skeins to countless new pairs of pillow cases from when we briefly lived in Shawmut, AL, home of West Point Pepperell, and known far and wide for "lady weekends" to shop at all the local outlet malls. I can at least match the color and stitch wee, almost invisible stitches to reattach the lovely old laces. I hope some of the five Grand-Daughters will like some of these---two are avid knitters, with one a genius at drawing with thread.
And I can still smell the scent of my Mother's Estee Lauder and Coty on those long-ago linens when I open that cedar chest. Funny turns a story can take, but that's what Wednesdays were made for.
When I first joined our church - they had a raffle at our summer festival. Some woodworker in the parish would craft a hope chest and all year the ladies could contribute items to fill it. By the next year the hope chest raffle disappeared and never returned.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother and great aunt both had hope chests crafted in my hometown. I did not realize how special they were until I was watching an antique appraisal show on a PBS channel in my state. I went to the chests (because I inherited both of them) and they had the maker's stamp inside. I gave one to each of my daughters, unfortunately empty.
Yes, those rough-handed guys who took SHOP while we took Home Ec---they made those lovely shining cedar chests----some from a tree they'd cut themselves on the PLACE, taken to the sawmill right there down the bayou, and cured before the making of those Hope Chests for a special Girl. They were the men who married that One Girl they'd cleaned up nice on Saturday nights to take to the Picture Show, driving up and knocking on her front door to escort her to the car, and home safely after a Doris Day/Rock Hudson and Frozen Root Beer at the Dairy Bar. They walked in the sweet aroma from the one bottle of Old Spice shared amongst the brothers, but their own VITALIS, and then sat up in the Church Balcony with their girl on Sunday mornings.
DeleteAnd SHE---that beloved sweetheart from sixth grade on, probably filled that chest with help of Mama and Aunts and two talented Grandmas, and used those precious items long as they lived. I look back at my Decade, knowing my own MOTHER did all her stitching and crochet and sewing and homework by Coal Oil Lamps until she was a Senior, and current came to the county.
I do like to ‘people watch’… i find folks fascinating and I enjoy observing…I love older folks…now, I realize I AM an older folk, when did that happen? For so long, I kept my Grandma’s hand crocheted and embroidered pillowcases, dresser scarfs, doilies, quilts and tea towels in my linen closet afraid to use them since I knew I could never replace them and their value to me. A few years back I thought ‘why am I saving them?’ They are meant to be enjoyed and while they are beautifully made, they need to be used and seen. I shared many with my grateful daughters (who love everything vintage) and together we are happily living with and enjoying the talent and gifts that were meant to bring joy and prettiness and beauty to a well loved home. We are so grateful to have had such lovely Grandmas, Moms and Aunts who spoiled us in so many ways. Thanks for the happy memories and I wish you a happy day, Virginia
ReplyDeleteps….aw, Estée Lauder and Coty…yes!
An ad for Estee Lauder popped up several months ago, as everything-and-your-lunch seems to do nowadays, and I ordered a bottle, just because. Chris and I were very fortunate that all four of our parents spent the last days and moments at home, after fifty-plus years of living in the family home. And the house of my Raisin' was a three-roof house, with another two rooms added on twice at about fifteen-year intervals over their marriage.
DeleteThe final hump across the silhouette spanned from their bedroom down into a step-down DEN, with an eight-foot little corridor whose sides were made of Mother's closets on one side, and a marble dressing table and mirrors on the other. And they were of the age of The Deeper the Carpet . . . so I just mentioned to Leah the other day that stepping onto her own cushy bathroom rugs, all warm from the furnace, and smelling the scent of that Estee Lauder on my sweater---deja vu to many a comfortable stroll in my socks in that warm, fragrant house of my childhood.
I LOVE that you honor your STUFF---those one-of-a-kind creations from hands long stilled, and that you've passed on that love of our past artistes' talents to your next generation. Chris teased me that he knew I don't wear jewelry and haven't a care for fashion, so he knew every time he presented me with a necklace or pretty brooch he'd found a Goodwill or a pawn shop, he'd say, "Will this go on a lampshade or a curtain valance?" I like my sparkles out there where I can see them, not on me.
And I believe in USE THAT GOOD STUFF!! (says I who made both parents JUMP at breakfast on one of my last visits, by bringing that suede-lined drawer of gorgeous Michelangelo flatware from the dining room and dumping it headlong into the one I'd just emptied of all the old stray forks and spoons that had limped along for decades, and saying "What are you saving this FOR?")
OMGOSH- I just saw this and I do the same thing. Look at someone and can form a whole story around them. My son and daughters do the same thing when we are out and about. Mostly the stories take on a hysterical form at some point in the discussion. lol. Some are a bit naughty but never mean-spirited.
ReplyDeleteI used to do quite a bit of embroidery but haven't done any in years. I still have some pillowcases that my grandmother embroidered and use them for 'display' pillows and removed them when the kids were sleeping over and let them use the regular pillows. That grandmother also tatted with a little tatting shuttle-which I still have. I have yards of her hand tatted lace and a few pillow cases that are edged with it.
When I lived in Florida I bought all Lady Pepperill (that's what it was called back then anyway) percale bed linens. They made a wonderful product...crisp and cool and perfect for Florida nights.
I hope you have had a wonderful, superstitious free Friday the 13th! Hugs & love- Diana
ps- I still wear Tuscany per Dona by Estee Lauder...it's my favorite 'winter' perfume.
I KNOW you do, Sweetpea!!! How can we not, with snarky imaginations like ours?? A couple come into IHop and sit shoulder-to-shoulder on one side of the booth---You KNOW they came in separate cars, and live WAY on the other side of town.
ReplyDeleteWe were Lady Pepperell Percale only, all my life----pronounced in our area Per-CAL like California. I ironed all the pillowslips, so careful of the inches of crochet (variegated usually, to match the little fancy stitching of little arrowheads-in-a-line or ovals or that tulip shape that kids draw for flowers---that was done a few inches from the hem by a smart little doohickey attached to the presser-foot on the Singer). OH, were THOSE fancy, and a bride who got a pair of THOSE from Mrs. B---they were forever.
Just by chance, we lived for a year in the Home of Pepperell---over in Alabama on the Georgia line at the Chattahoochee, and sale weekends at the Mill Outlet Stores brought in Crowds like the Ole Miss-State game. They'd crowd all the fast food places in town, sometimes parking all the way over on our little street, and line up outside stores EARLY, those two-or-four-ladies-to-a-car, sometimes from states away for a shopping weekend with all those values. They'd search the wares in the "Seconds" store with little magnifying lenses in one eye like a diamond merchant, and haul out stacks and stacks enough of bedlinens to befit the Princess with the Pea.
Thank you!!! Friday 13th was a GORGEOUS DAY---clouds at wakeup, then bright sun and a Lion Pride's worth of WIND as I went into the store, and threatened to blow my immense pack of Bounty towels off the buggy and across the parking lot when I came out. Two of those fabulous rotisserie chickens (Better even than Sam's)---some for lunch with leftover pea salad and Watergate , and for Leah to debone for the freezer. Lunch on trays in the sunny-washed sitting room, and new episodes of Matlock and Elspeth, lots of texts and pictures from our girls touring Ireland, and some put-aways and til-next-years of decor, then the day ended perfumed with the three hours bone-broth simmering til bedtime. If I'd had a hat, the wind would have done the "turning around" for Luck. Lovely March Day.
I love, more than I can say, that your hope chest was crafted by your sweetheart in shop class -- and that you later married. That hope chest was filled with more than lovely things. It is filled with memories and love.
ReplyDeleteYes, he did!! My Dad-the-WOOOOD-expert was most complimentary and used words like "Mortised" and even "satin" when he saw it. Daddy had made them a totally-cedar bedroom in one of the add-ons to the house, and found a perfect set of cedar furniture as a "bedroom suit,," which they slept in for fifty something years.
DeleteThe THINGS were priceless---in my tried-to-be-lovely script in my Shower Book from our wedding, no ditto marks for me---there's whole page reading "Mr. and Mrs. Thus-and-so" with "One pair pillowcases" nineteen times---isn't that a fun remembrance? I haven't opened the chest in a long time---it's snugged up to the big old 1880s dresser in "Daddy's Room"---which furniture graced "Mammaw's Room"---the crochet genius---at our family home.
I'm fiddling with a lot of fifties and sixties remembrances in our THINGS---our wedding gifts and the different-from-today items which seem destined for Goodwill all over the world if nobody loves them like we do. Thank you for the sweet words which kindled such dear remembrances.