Tattoos
I heard on TV news that the Houston, Texas police dept has issued an edict prohibiting the showing of tattoos. All personnel with tattoos must keep them covered in order to present a professional, unified appearance to the public.
As an adult, I never gave much thought to tattoos except when I saw one on a movie character, or on a woman’s shoulder or back waistline on Judge Judy’s or Judge Joe Brown’s TV court program when a complaint was being made about it for some reason.
As children though, my brothers and sisters and I were intrigued with Dad’s. He had a flag tattooed on the inside of his left forearm just below the elbow crease. It was red, white and blue with a simulated wave. One could imagine it blowing in the wind.
Sometimes when we had run out of play ideas, someone would ask Dad to show us his tattoo. We loved to hear the story about how he got it. When he was quite a young boy, he decided to secretly get one, but his younger brother, Ernest, discovered his plan, and insisted on tagging along. When they got to the tattoo parlor, they had to chose the design and after some thought, they both decided to have the same flag pattern done on their arms so that shirt sleeves would hide it from their parents.
Of course we asked how it was done and as Dad went into detail, we shuddered at the thought of needles pricking the skin. We commented on their bravery to have such a procedure done and we would take turns touching the flag to feel the smoothness.
Dad and Ernest were able to keep the secret until Grandma and Grandpa discovered that Earnest’s arm was infected. They had a fit! Dad said they were very angry with him for not only getting the tattoo on his own arm, but for letting his younger brother get one too!
As we grew up and remembered to ask Dad to show us his tattoo, he always obliged. Amazingly, the colors were bright as new. When WWII happened, we were very proud that Dad had a flag on his arm. We thought it very patriotic! As the years passed we nearly forgot about the tattoo it had become such a part of his being. We rarely gave it a thought, even when we saw him wearing only an undershirt.
As Dad’s age reached 101, I began to take notice of his tattoo again. The flag was still there, faded, but enough color remained to identify it as the flag of the United States. And it was still smooth to the touch. We revived the old stories about the tattoo and we both enjoyed the reminiscing of his escapade.
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Friday, July 29, 2005
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Threading Needles
I spent the good part of an hour trying to thread a needle today. It was the same needle I threaded yesterday. It was also the same thread, from the same spool that I used yesterday. I have several of those little gizmos that threads needles, but the eye of the needle I was trying to thread was too small for the miniscule gizmo wire to push thread thru.
I snipped imagined frayed ends of the thread, along with the classic technique of wetting and pinching to make a point that would go thru the eye, but all I can say for my persistent efforts was zip, nada, zero, nothing. I even came up empty handed when I searched my needle cache for one I could use.
While I was struggling with my needle threading I thought of Dad who threaded all the needles Mom used when she quilted. He did not use a needle threader gizmo. He wore glasses but he did all the threading by hand. As he threaded each needle he judged the thread length Mom like to work with, and carefully pinned each threaded needle side by side to a man’s white handkerchief.
The needles were placed close together and in long rows. There would be hundreds of threaded needles by the time he filled the handkerchief. He had a special way of folding the handkerchief to protect the threads so they didn’t tangle. As Mom finished a needle, she pinned it to the handkerchief and gently pulled a threaded one from the cloth to use.
Mom found so much pleasure in quilting. Dad made her quilting frame along with rails of different lengths to fit any size quilt Mom wanted to work. Dad also helped with tracing the border designs. The two of them were a ‘quilting team’. Dad was as proud of each finished quilt as Mom was.
I have no idea how many quilts Mom finished. She quilted for many years so there had to be a large number. Most of her quilts were traditional patterns; although she once quilted a dogwood pattern I designed to be white on white. It was really lovely when it was finished and I was pleased it had been quilted so beautifully. She gave it as a present to the Dr. that did her cataract surgery.
I
I spent the good part of an hour trying to thread a needle today. It was the same needle I threaded yesterday. It was also the same thread, from the same spool that I used yesterday. I have several of those little gizmos that threads needles, but the eye of the needle I was trying to thread was too small for the miniscule gizmo wire to push thread thru.
I snipped imagined frayed ends of the thread, along with the classic technique of wetting and pinching to make a point that would go thru the eye, but all I can say for my persistent efforts was zip, nada, zero, nothing. I even came up empty handed when I searched my needle cache for one I could use.
While I was struggling with my needle threading I thought of Dad who threaded all the needles Mom used when she quilted. He did not use a needle threader gizmo. He wore glasses but he did all the threading by hand. As he threaded each needle he judged the thread length Mom like to work with, and carefully pinned each threaded needle side by side to a man’s white handkerchief.
The needles were placed close together and in long rows. There would be hundreds of threaded needles by the time he filled the handkerchief. He had a special way of folding the handkerchief to protect the threads so they didn’t tangle. As Mom finished a needle, she pinned it to the handkerchief and gently pulled a threaded one from the cloth to use.
Mom found so much pleasure in quilting. Dad made her quilting frame along with rails of different lengths to fit any size quilt Mom wanted to work. Dad also helped with tracing the border designs. The two of them were a ‘quilting team’. Dad was as proud of each finished quilt as Mom was.
I have no idea how many quilts Mom finished. She quilted for many years so there had to be a large number. Most of her quilts were traditional patterns; although she once quilted a dogwood pattern I designed to be white on white. It was really lovely when it was finished and I was pleased it had been quilted so beautifully. She gave it as a present to the Dr. that did her cataract surgery.
I
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Mark H.
I had a surprise phone call from my nephew, Mark. It’s always a delight to chat with him. He drives an eighteen wheeler and phones me from time to time from various points on his long haul trips. Mark and his wife Celia live in Missouri with their three children, although Celia and boys, Andrew and Jonathan and daughter Christina are presently on vacation in California visiting Celia’s family.
I’ve enjoyed knowing my sister Adeline’s children, Michael, Virginia, David and Mark. Each had charming personalities as children and as adults they are still charming and fun to know.
I first saw Michael when he was about a year old. At that time, my husband and I were in Philadelphia on business and I had an opportunity to visit Adeline in New York for an afternoon. Adeline had a regular routine of taking Michael for a walk in his stroller every afternoon so I helped bundle him up and off we went. The weather was cold and cloudy, but Michael was happy as could be.
Virginia was 18 months old before I had an opportunity to see her for the first time. Mom and Dad were babysitting her for a day. She was a cutie little cherub with dark hair and fair complexion and sound asleep in her playpen.
David was sitting in his highchair, eating cheerios when I first saw him. He was almost at the walking stage and Adeline asked me to fix his bottle while she got him ready for his nap.
One of my earliest memories of Mark was when Adeline asked me to baby sit one afternoon while she made a quick trip to the grocery store. She warned me to keep a close eye on Mark or he would sneak away and try to cross a busy street on his way to the bakery. As a toddler he had learned to climb the high brick wall enclosing the back yard and taking off to heaven knows where! As a slightly older child, he had repeated his escapes on several occasions, but neighbors, police and shop keepers were alerted to his forays.
As I sat on the couch reading Mark a story; he sat on the floor by my feet. He heard Adeline tell me to keep an eye on him and he promised me not to run away. He brought me a long 10 or 12 foot piece of heavy rope and said he would tie himself to my foot. I let him wrap the rope around my ankle and he wrapped the rope around his waist and sat on the floor listening to me read.
I once had Mark spend the night with me. When I took him home the next day, we stopped at a deli and ordered sandwiches and slaw to eat at one of the outdoor tables. As we were eating, Mark told me he was never allowed to keep any of the money he earned, his father made him put it all in his bank account. I was a bit surprised but when I asked if he got to spend some of his money on things like movies or candy, he said no.
The movie How the West Was Won was showing at a near by theater. Thinking the film title indicated it might be appropriate for children, I decided to take him to the movie before I took him home. We settled into our seats with popcorn, but it wasn’t long before I realized that Mark was too young to sit thru Hollywood’s history of the west, so we left.
Mark often made fudge in the afternoons after school. I happened to be around on several occasions when he made his fudge and served it to everyone. It was delicious, the best I’d ever eaten! He told me how to make it, but I didn’t write the recipe down. On the way home I stopped and bought the ingredients which included a can of evaporated milk and proceeded to make fudge, only mine didn’t fudge! I phoned Mark to find our why I was having so much trouble and discovered I had used a large can of milk, not the smaller one the recipe called for. My solution to the problem was to double the recipe and continue cooking the mixture. I ended up with a lot of fudge that was almost, but not quite, as good as Mark’s.
I once traveled across the country from Texas to California with Mark and his wife. Mark was driving a pickup with a camper, his wife and I took turns driving their small compact car. We caravanned in tandem, making stops at the same time. We pulled into the rest stop outside Deming, New Mexico late one morning. Mark was concerned that his truck radiator was heating up, so he checked under the hood.
As the three of us stood there looking at the engine, I noticed that a man some distance from us, start to run toward me with arm held straight out with his finger pointed at me like a gun. I just stood there looking from his hand to his eyes and back to his hand. In a flash the man had reached me, put his arms around my waist, whirled me around, and laughed. He asked if I knew who he was. It was Anno, a cousin I hadn’t seen for years! We asked how in the world he found us. He was making a fast driving trip from Florida to California, but had taken time to stop and say hello to Mom and Dad in Texas. They told him to look for us and described the truck and car. That’s how he knew it was us. I still marvel at that chance meeting in the desert! It was like finding a needle in a haystack.
I had a surprise phone call from my nephew, Mark. It’s always a delight to chat with him. He drives an eighteen wheeler and phones me from time to time from various points on his long haul trips. Mark and his wife Celia live in Missouri with their three children, although Celia and boys, Andrew and Jonathan and daughter Christina are presently on vacation in California visiting Celia’s family.
I’ve enjoyed knowing my sister Adeline’s children, Michael, Virginia, David and Mark. Each had charming personalities as children and as adults they are still charming and fun to know.
I first saw Michael when he was about a year old. At that time, my husband and I were in Philadelphia on business and I had an opportunity to visit Adeline in New York for an afternoon. Adeline had a regular routine of taking Michael for a walk in his stroller every afternoon so I helped bundle him up and off we went. The weather was cold and cloudy, but Michael was happy as could be.
Virginia was 18 months old before I had an opportunity to see her for the first time. Mom and Dad were babysitting her for a day. She was a cutie little cherub with dark hair and fair complexion and sound asleep in her playpen.
David was sitting in his highchair, eating cheerios when I first saw him. He was almost at the walking stage and Adeline asked me to fix his bottle while she got him ready for his nap.
One of my earliest memories of Mark was when Adeline asked me to baby sit one afternoon while she made a quick trip to the grocery store. She warned me to keep a close eye on Mark or he would sneak away and try to cross a busy street on his way to the bakery. As a toddler he had learned to climb the high brick wall enclosing the back yard and taking off to heaven knows where! As a slightly older child, he had repeated his escapes on several occasions, but neighbors, police and shop keepers were alerted to his forays.
As I sat on the couch reading Mark a story; he sat on the floor by my feet. He heard Adeline tell me to keep an eye on him and he promised me not to run away. He brought me a long 10 or 12 foot piece of heavy rope and said he would tie himself to my foot. I let him wrap the rope around my ankle and he wrapped the rope around his waist and sat on the floor listening to me read.
I once had Mark spend the night with me. When I took him home the next day, we stopped at a deli and ordered sandwiches and slaw to eat at one of the outdoor tables. As we were eating, Mark told me he was never allowed to keep any of the money he earned, his father made him put it all in his bank account. I was a bit surprised but when I asked if he got to spend some of his money on things like movies or candy, he said no.
The movie How the West Was Won was showing at a near by theater. Thinking the film title indicated it might be appropriate for children, I decided to take him to the movie before I took him home. We settled into our seats with popcorn, but it wasn’t long before I realized that Mark was too young to sit thru Hollywood’s history of the west, so we left.
Mark often made fudge in the afternoons after school. I happened to be around on several occasions when he made his fudge and served it to everyone. It was delicious, the best I’d ever eaten! He told me how to make it, but I didn’t write the recipe down. On the way home I stopped and bought the ingredients which included a can of evaporated milk and proceeded to make fudge, only mine didn’t fudge! I phoned Mark to find our why I was having so much trouble and discovered I had used a large can of milk, not the smaller one the recipe called for. My solution to the problem was to double the recipe and continue cooking the mixture. I ended up with a lot of fudge that was almost, but not quite, as good as Mark’s.
I once traveled across the country from Texas to California with Mark and his wife. Mark was driving a pickup with a camper, his wife and I took turns driving their small compact car. We caravanned in tandem, making stops at the same time. We pulled into the rest stop outside Deming, New Mexico late one morning. Mark was concerned that his truck radiator was heating up, so he checked under the hood.
As the three of us stood there looking at the engine, I noticed that a man some distance from us, start to run toward me with arm held straight out with his finger pointed at me like a gun. I just stood there looking from his hand to his eyes and back to his hand. In a flash the man had reached me, put his arms around my waist, whirled me around, and laughed. He asked if I knew who he was. It was Anno, a cousin I hadn’t seen for years! We asked how in the world he found us. He was making a fast driving trip from Florida to California, but had taken time to stop and say hello to Mom and Dad in Texas. They told him to look for us and described the truck and car. That’s how he knew it was us. I still marvel at that chance meeting in the desert! It was like finding a needle in a haystack.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
George
George W has moved back to ‘Osky’. He sold his house in What Cheer, Iowa, auctioned most of the furnishings and has rented a small apartment in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He will be 84 in August. Although his health allows him to retain his independence, he wanted to be closer to family members in case of emergency.
When I, along with my brothers and sisters stayed with Grandma W, uncles George, Paul and H.O. were more like older brothers than uncles. During summer days when school was out, Paul and H.O. spent their time with boys their own ages, but George and I formed a formidable pair that dominated most of the activities of the kids we played with. Neighbor kids, and those of my brothers and sisters that chose to join us, formed a loosely knit gang that expanded and disintegrated several times a day as our activities changed. The pair of us mutually took the attitude of being in charge and allowing others to tag along although we never voiced such an opinion.
We children had a freedom in those days that would be unthinkable in today’s world. We had the run of the town, and all its offerings. Occasionally we would ask Grandma for permission to go somewhere we thought might be out of bounds, but other than that, we came and went pretty much as we pleased. We hit home base a couple of times in the morning and the same in the afternoons, so Grandma had an idea of where and what we were doing as she let us ‘just be kids’.
Sometimes Grandma would ask one of us to run an errand to the day old bread store or the post office, but generally we ran in ‘packs’ as we walked across town to see Aunt Rita’s and Uncle Lester’s new baby, or to the stadium to run the cinder track. We never lacked for something to do, be it playing Michigan Rummy with Bicycle cards, (Grandma didn’t allow Euchre decks in the house) or taking turns playing Grandma’s old pump organ where one of us had to manually push the bellows because our feet couldn’t reach the pedals.
Grandma was quite tolerant of the mischief George and I got into, but I vividly remember one occasion when she was very cross with us. Grandma sent us to town with our toy wagon to get a large chunk of ice so she could make peach ice cream in the old fashioned freezer and asked us to help turn the crank. When the ice cream was ready, she took the freezer into the cellar room and covered it with gunny sacks and old blankets to keep the ice cream frozen until time to serve it.
As the morning passed I went looking for George and discovered him in the cellar, sneaking a taste of ice cream. I demanded a taste too. We carefully rewrapped the freezer and made our getaway. It wasn’t long before we decided another little taste wouldn’t be noticed so back we went for more. We made several furtive tasting trips before we realized we had substantially lowered the level of ice cream in the container.
When Grandma got ready to remove the dashers from the ice cream container, she discovered our dastardly deed and demanded to know who was responsible. After confessing, she lectured us royally! She sent us for more ice to make another batch and warned us to be ‘quick’ about it. She threatened to make us do with out, but when the time came to serve the ice cream; she relented and served us along with the others.
When I, along with my brothers and sisters stayed with Grandma W, uncles George, Paul and H.O. were more like older brothers than uncles. During summer days when school was out, Paul and H.O. spent their time with boys their own ages, but George and I formed a formidable pair that dominated most of the activities of the kids we played with. Neighbor kids, and those of my brothers and sisters that chose to join us, formed a loosely knit gang that expanded and disintegrated several times a day as our activities changed. The pair of us mutually took the attitude of being in charge and allowing others to tag along although we never voiced such an opinion.
We children had a freedom in those days that would be unthinkable in today’s world. We had the run of the town, and all its offerings. Occasionally we would ask Grandma for permission to go somewhere we thought might be out of bounds, but other than that, we came and went pretty much as we pleased. We hit home base a couple of times in the morning and the same in the afternoons, so Grandma had an idea of where and what we were doing as she let us ‘just be kids’.
Sometimes Grandma would ask one of us to run an errand to the day old bread store or the post office, but generally we ran in ‘packs’ as we walked across town to see Aunt Rita’s and Uncle Lester’s new baby, or to the stadium to run the cinder track. We never lacked for something to do, be it playing Michigan Rummy with Bicycle cards, (Grandma didn’t allow Euchre decks in the house) or taking turns playing Grandma’s old pump organ where one of us had to manually push the bellows because our feet couldn’t reach the pedals.
Grandma was quite tolerant of the mischief George and I got into, but I vividly remember one occasion when she was very cross with us. Grandma sent us to town with our toy wagon to get a large chunk of ice so she could make peach ice cream in the old fashioned freezer and asked us to help turn the crank. When the ice cream was ready, she took the freezer into the cellar room and covered it with gunny sacks and old blankets to keep the ice cream frozen until time to serve it.
As the morning passed I went looking for George and discovered him in the cellar, sneaking a taste of ice cream. I demanded a taste too. We carefully rewrapped the freezer and made our getaway. It wasn’t long before we decided another little taste wouldn’t be noticed so back we went for more. We made several furtive tasting trips before we realized we had substantially lowered the level of ice cream in the container.
When Grandma got ready to remove the dashers from the ice cream container, she discovered our dastardly deed and demanded to know who was responsible. After confessing, she lectured us royally! She sent us for more ice to make another batch and warned us to be ‘quick’ about it. She threatened to make us do with out, but when the time came to serve the ice cream; she relented and served us along with the others.
Monday, July 04, 2005
July 4th
NASA has blasted a comet as part of our 4th of July celebration! Done as a scientific probe, timing the event to occur in the early hours of July 4th, is phenomenal. (As all space achievements are phenomenal.) Since ‘Sputnik’ first circled the earth I’ve been fascinated with all space endeavors.
Sending persons into orbit around the earth in a rocket controlled by a rinky-dink computer compared to the more complex computers we use today seems foolhardy. When a space ship landed on the moon so men could walk in moon dust then return to earth to tell about it, I knew we had reached the age of ‘Buck Rogers’.
When my sister, Adeline, and I were 8 and 9 years old, we played a game of imagination to compete with the newspaper comic strip, Buck Rogers. We stretched our imagination to the limit in thinking of outrageous inventions we knew were impossible. We laughed hysterically as we took turns naming things like a machine to wash dirty dishes, a machine to cook food in a few minutes, a sewing machine that could embroider, and even a machine like a radio that would show pictures.
Today, I can cook meals in a microwave, and watch news events and celebrations on my Television. I can also wish everyone a HAPPY 4th of July, 2005 on my computer!
NASA has blasted a comet as part of our 4th of July celebration! Done as a scientific probe, timing the event to occur in the early hours of July 4th, is phenomenal. (As all space achievements are phenomenal.) Since ‘Sputnik’ first circled the earth I’ve been fascinated with all space endeavors.
Sending persons into orbit around the earth in a rocket controlled by a rinky-dink computer compared to the more complex computers we use today seems foolhardy. When a space ship landed on the moon so men could walk in moon dust then return to earth to tell about it, I knew we had reached the age of ‘Buck Rogers’.
When my sister, Adeline, and I were 8 and 9 years old, we played a game of imagination to compete with the newspaper comic strip, Buck Rogers. We stretched our imagination to the limit in thinking of outrageous inventions we knew were impossible. We laughed hysterically as we took turns naming things like a machine to wash dirty dishes, a machine to cook food in a few minutes, a sewing machine that could embroider, and even a machine like a radio that would show pictures.
Today, I can cook meals in a microwave, and watch news events and celebrations on my Television. I can also wish everyone a HAPPY 4th of July, 2005 on my computer!
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