All posts by reneeinnd

Family, History, Uncategorized

Vintage

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A few weeks ago I cleared everything out of my mother’s Lane cedar chest.  We have had the chest for about three years,  but I didn’t feel like sorting through it  until  now.  It is a traditional hope chest with mahogany veneer.  My mother stored her best table linens, my baptismal dress and baby slippers, her mink pill box hat and detachable mink collar, and other things she treasured in that chest.   My parents were solidly middle class, but mom had a few really nice things that she kept in that chest for decades.  I felt that I took a trip back to the 1950’s as I sorted through everything.

My parents didn’t entertain very often. Mom would have ladies over for sewing club or coffee occasionally,  and the relatives, of course, but nothing that she really dressed up for. I was surprised to find this apron in  the chest.  It is clearly an apron a woman would wear at a gathering as she served the ladies the elegant luncheon she had prepared. The photo doesn’t do it justice, and I am not wearing the requisite full skirted dress it should go over.  It is made of a very heavy linen/cotton fabric. It is very long and  full, with a wide waist band and wide ties in the back that are meant to create a lovely bow.

 

The insets on the pocket, on the ties, and near the hem look like this.

The apron appears to be hand made.  The hemming stitches are extremely uniform and perfectly spaced.

The bands of insets were also attached by hand onto the fabric with perfect, even stitches.

Someone went to a lot of work to make this apron.  When I took it out of the chest it appeared to be  carefully ironed and the fabric did not seem to ever have been washed. I don’t remember my mom ever wearing it. She wouldn’t have spent good money on a fancy apron like that, so I assume it was given to her as a gift.  I wish I knew its history. I have decided to wear it. That apron has been in the chest too many years. I feel taller and quite elegant when I wear it.

I kept most of the things mom had in the chest but I will try to use them when I can. I kept the  mink hat and collar, but I don’t think I will ever wear them, though. Our kitten thought the hat was the best thing and I had to retrieve it from her several times after she dragged it down the hall.

Have you ever worn vintage clothes? What era of vintage clothing would you like to wear? What is the oldest article of clothing you own?

 

 

Baboon Achievers, History, Stories

The College Years

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Today’s post comes from Steve Grooms

In the fall of 1960 I became a freshman at Grinnell College. The class of ’64 went on to win a spotty reputation as perhaps the most talented but troublesome classes in college history. The 1960s were a turbulent time in higher education all across the nation.

Those years, for me, were amazingly transformative. I entered that period as a provincial, shy, sanctimonious kid from a small Iowa town. I was some sort of Republican, a passive sort of Christian. I was also a prig who was offended by folks who smoked, drank alcohol, had sex out of wedlock or swore. I had terrible study habits and little discipline. My first crisis was discovering whether I was equal to the challenge of college coursework. I spent my freshman year in terror of flunking out.

Even the simple business of living in a dorm was threatening for me. In high school I avoided two kinds of people: the boys and the girls. At Grinnell I was obliged to live in a dormitory with 30 young men whom I did not know. I soon learned my dorm buddies farted, got drunk and hosed each other down with language so vulgar I didn’t know what the words meant. For a while I wondered if I might be gay because the guys around me were so crude and aggressive that I felt I belonged to a different species.

Grinnell shocked me in good ways, too. I had lived 18 years of my life totally ignorant of the complex delights of classical music. The college offered live concerts with music so powerful it sometimes reduced me to tears. Among my dorm mates were guys who played folk guitar and bluegrass banjo. I fell in love with that until music was so important I couldn’t imagine having lived without it.

Something similar happened with respect to the world of books, social debates, historical dilemmas, appreciation of visual arts, and many other areas. Because Grinnell was so isolated (“in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by cornfields”) the college tried hard to import exciting speakers and artists. Attending lectures on fascinating topics was free and easy: all one had to do was show up and listen. I found out I cared about ideas and history and art to a degree I had not known was possible.

The kid who left Grinnell four years later was very little like the kid who showed up in 1960. I’m convinced that all of us change, and in fact we change every year we are alive. But some changes are vastly more significant than others, and my Grinnell years were that.

What about you? If you attended college, what did the experience mean to you?

Art, books, Family, Kids, Travel

Carousel

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Today’s post comes from Occasional Caroline

I think it was back in October, when I was too busy with my mom to even be occasionally on the trail, and was catching up days or weeks after a post was current, that the topic of carousels was raised in a post about something else. Anyway it was too long after the fact for me to comment by the time I read it, but I did have something to say, so here we go. Has anyone been to  Lark Toys in Kellogg, Minnesota? http://www.larktoys.com/carousel/

When we first started going there, I think when my 40-something daughters were a pre- and young teen, the carousel was in process and you could sometimes watch the carver working on the individual animals. They are all hand carved from large hunks of beech-wood, and stained, not painted. The intricacy of the carving is fantastic. When it was being carved, there were informational posters on-site and one of the things I partially remember reading was that Merry-Go-Rounds had only horses and Carousels had many different animals. This one was originally going to have 4 horses, one representing each primary compass direction; North, South, East, and West. I believe by the time the mechanicals were sourced and acquired, some of the carved masterpieces had to be left off the final collection to keep the weight down. I think only one or two horses made the cut, and a moose and several other larger pieces are now displayed in the building, but not on the actual carousel. The horses are beautiful, but the dragon, the goat, the goldfish family, and others are works of an amazing imagination. You could study the goat for an hour and not notice all of the intricacies hidden in it’s depths.

The entire complex is wonderful. There’s a children’s book store; a toy store with a model train running on a long track high up and around the perimeter of the store. Among other wonderful, unique and creative toys, is a huge collection of hand puppets. A Christmas shop, an antique toy museum that has every toy you or your cousins or friends had as a kid, a boomer toy store that carries replicas of many of your old toys, a candy store, an ice cream stand, and a mini golf course in the summer, are all part of the magical experience.

The original owners lived nearby and walked their pot-belly pig (his name was Gip, (Pig backwards)) to the store every morning to take up his supervisory post in a large open home away from home in the building.

The complex changed hands probably about 10 years ago (maybe longer ago, time flies when you’re old) but the current owners seem dedicated of maintaining the original spirit of the experience. Kellogg is south of Wabasha and north of Winona on Highway 61. BiR, you must have been there, possibly even posted about it, and I missed it. This hidden jewel is well worth a day trip with children, grandchildren, or nostalgic boomers. I haven’t been there for several years, but now that I’m thinking about it, I’ll have to make the trek soon.

Where do you go for a day trip?

 

Art, Business, News

Good Value

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An update from my home town: The Rock County Star Herald reported last week that the arts, defined as the Tri-State Band Festival, the new Rock County Historical Society Museum, the Herreid War Museum, the Brandenburg Art Gallery, the Green Earth Players (a local acting company that performs at the historic Palace Theatre), the Beer Fest, and various performances at the high school and at other venues, brought $2,000,000 into Luverne’s economy last year. I think that is pretty remarkable for a town of 4500 people so far from the Twin Cities.

If the arts can have such a big economic impact, why are they often viewed as expendable?  How have the arts impacted your life? What good news have you heard lately?

Uncategorized, work

Chew

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I work on a college campus that is designated “Tobacco Free”.  That means not just smoke free, but free of  all tobacco products.  It is hard to enforce. My agency provides a variety of addiction and mental health services, and many of our clients smoke.  Most are pretty good about not smoking,  but a few disregard the  rules.  It is pretty common to see clients (and some staff)  smoking in secluded spots outside the building, or sitting in their vehicles with the windows rolled up, puffing away.  As long as I can’t smell it, I don’t have much of an issue.

I  have problems with folks who chew, though.  I imagine smokeless tobacco is more a problem out here than in urban areas.  It is pretty common in the oilfield and in the rodeo community.  I usually have a pretty iron stomach, but just knowing that someone chews and has a wad under their lip makes me feel nauseous. The other day I saw a guy in the waiting room with a little cup full of  brown spittle that he kept emptying in the water fountain. I knew he was about to leave soon, and the circumstances were such that I didn’t want to make an issue of it. I had to ride the elevator with him to the first floor, and it was hard not to gag.

A local entrepreneur has started a company that sells tobacco-free chew made mainly with caffeine. I am dismayed, since it would be perfectly legal to have in our building. I will not allow myself to be thwarted  by a technicality, and anyone who comes to see me will leave their tobacco-free chew in the parking lot.

When have you been vexed by a technicality?

Nature, News, Stories

Enforced Idleness

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This was so dumb. Here I was with a long weekend and I was laid up for three days on the sofa with a cough, fatigue, and a low-grade fever.  I didn’t have real grand plans, but it would have been nice to have some productive time at home. It was too cold to go anywhere.  All I was good for was as a heating pad for cats.

The enforced idleness wasn’t so bad. I rarely get sick, and when I do it is a sign to slow down and rest.  One of my favorite ending lines to a Lawrence Durrell novel is “I felt as if the universe had given me a nudge”. This viral thing I had was a nudge, and I  paid attention.

How do you take care of yourself when you are sick?  Does the universe nudge you or wallop you?

 

Family, pets, Stories

The Cats of Yore

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Oh, where are the cats of yore, those aloof, independent creatures who disdained we mere mortals unless it was dinner time,  and who were happy to accept a few scritches before they had enough and left to find a nice, solitary napping place?

We and our daughter have welcomed an entirely different breed of cat into our respective homes over the last year. I call these the needy cats, and they are interesting to live with. Daughter tells me that her cat, almost 9 months old, is either on top of her or following her around her apartment.  She wants to play with daughter all night, hence kitten’s banishment from the bedroom so daughter can sleep.

We adopted a 5 month old rescue kitten in October. Her name is Millie and she believes that the  best place to be is right by our side. She loves to sit on the counter and watch us wash dishes.  She wants to supervise when we cook. Any food we eat must be hers, too. We have tried to dissuade her jumping and intrusiveness with water from a squirt bottle, but that backfired. She really likes water.  She hurls her body against the closed bathroom door so it opens, and jumps in the tub even if the faucet is turned on. Wherever I sit, she plops herself in my lap, demanding to be petted. At night I am awakened by her gently patting my cheeks with her paws.

Given the tufts of hair between her toes, the tufts of hair in her ears,  and her extremely long and very fluffy, luxurious tail, we think she may be part Maine Coon. Perhaps that could account for her personality.

This is also the first time we have cats without having terriers, too. The terriers did pretty well with the cats (as well as any terrier can do with creatures they consider vermin).  The dogs would pursue and bark if the cats were too active or jumped on the table or counters.  Maybe the dogs squelched  the cats’  full expression of their personalities.  All our new cats are rescue cats. Perhaps they are just so grateful to us that they can’t stop thanking us.

The header photo is of Millie in the bathroom sink. The other photo is a head shot of Millie after we caught her with her face in the cream cheese. She provides lots of photo opportunities and topics for conversation, which are somewhat redeeming qualities.

What kind of personalities  have your animals had?

Family, History, Stories

Soirees

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I spent more time this weekend clearing out unwanted stuff in the basement.  The three camping cots were donated to the homeless coordinator at work.  Girly, twin size bedding was donated to the thrift store operated by a service provider for our developmentally disabled citizens, and I tossed all of daughter’s dorm room Christmas decorations from her freshman year. Then I got to the shelving where we store things from our parents we don’t use but still have.

We are the proud owners of my mother’s cut glass punch bowl, along with 12 glass cups and a glass ladle.  We also have her silver service, as well as my mother-in-law’s silver service.  I started to reminisce about the fancy lunches, family wedding receptions, and  other soirees from my childhood and young adulthood where those things were used.  I remember having to choose with care which aunts would sit at each end of the table and pour out the coffee at my wedding reception. They had to be different aunts than the ones who got to cut the wedding cake for so it could be served.  Nice memories.

Husband thinks we should keep the punch bowl.  I would like to keep the silver tray from my mother-in-law’s silver service and have it replated, since it is large with a pleasing design but has some of the plating worn off.  I can live without silver coffee and tea pots.  They just don’t have parties like they used to.

Tell about some parties you remember.

Business, Nature, work

A Poverty of Imagination

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My agency,  like most of the  Human Service Centers in my State, is understaffed.  We can’t seem to find any psychologists or psychiatrists or other mental health professionals  to come and work for us.  The problem is state-wide, even in the more urban areas.  There even is a paucity of private-sector mental health professionals in the western side of the State.

We certainly have tried to attract people, what with student loan forgiveness, great benefits, and competitive salaries.   No one wants to work in a rural state. My husband and I think people seem to have a poverty of imagination of what life could be like here.  I turn to the Baboons for suggestions.

How would you entice people to move to a remote, rural area to live and work?  What do you think are people’s misconceptions about rural life?  How would you speak to the realities of rural life?

Family, gardening, pets, The Future, Uncategorized

Hoping

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Every morning our grey cat sits expectantly  by the front door, waiting.  She waits for the magic moment when the light appears on the living room wall and ceiling above our media cabinet.   She knows it is somehow associated with my cell phone.  This morning she saw me walk into the living room with my phone, and immediately jumped on top of the media cabinet, waiting for the light. The kitten stays on the floor, as her legs are too short to make the leap to the top.  The light sometimes appears low enough for her to pounce, and she waits for it, too.

When I sit in the love seat  by the bay window, the sun reflects off my cell phone screen and I can flash a light all over the walls and ceiling. The kitten tries to grab it. It always slips between her paws. The grey cat just sits and watches it with fascination and excitement.  It seems to be strangely satisfying for her, as though her day is off to a good start when the light appears.  As the days shortened this fall, the light sometimes didn’t even show up, since the sun wasn’t in the right position until after I left for work.  The grey cat never gave up hope.  She waited each morning.

Today we planned our garden and chose the seed varieties for next summer. I hope the rains come and we don’t have a drought.   I don’t think we are too different from our cats, waiting with hope for the promise of light in this dark season and these even darker times.

The new year has just started. What are you hoping for?