U is for Unrelated, Miscellaneous Finds

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

I was quite the little packrat! And as if the collection of items I have shared here so far weren't diverse enough, this post is devoted to some of my more eclectic finds.

First up is my first pair of glasses, which I got while I was in the 7th grade. They are the epitome of 1972 eyeglass fashion, and all my friends with glasses had either this shape or ones with octagonal lenses.

Growing up in Kansas City, we were all about our Hallmark products. Betsy Clark products were a favorite of mine. This is a button, about 3 inches across. I also had a keychain with a Betsy Clark character on it that was a good 4 inches in diameter. All my friends had them, too, with a house key on it that we seldom needed, because our moms were almost always at home.

I took my very first plane ride when I was 13 and I flew from Kansas City to St. Louis. My Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Bradley picked me up there, along with my aunt's niece Judy, who flew in from New Jersey. Judy and I spent a week at their home in southern Illinois and had a grand time! This was the tag from my checked suitcase. RIP Ozark Airlines. 

I had my tonsils removed in 1967, right after Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. I wrote about it here if you would like to read the story. I have some vivid memories of the hospital experience as a patient and as a child spending the night in a hospital in the inner city when rioting broke out. 

I had completely forgotten about this tiny doll! I don't remember when or where I got her, but someone had crocheted the dress and hat AND teeny, tiny underpants. Quarter for scale. Side note: I was carefully setting up this photo to get as much detail as possible while my cat Nora looked on. The moment I had the doll arranged and lifted up my phone to take the photo, Nora would reach out a paw and swoop the doll towards her. Then I would make a grab for the doll, and she would take the quarter. This went on several times before I was finally quicker than she was.

Crown Center, developed and built by Hallmark near downtown Kansas City, opened in 1973 and included a high rise hotel with upscale restaurants, one of the first food courts in the area, and boutiques and gift shops, as well as office buildings and an outdoor area for festivals in the summer and ice skating in the winter. It was a real treat to get to go there, and a visit on February 15, 1974 garnered me this little prize that I bought at a terrific gift shop called Maudie's. They are sugar cubes, decorated with royal icing flowers. I loved eating sugar cubes when we visited my grandpa's store (don't pretend like YOU never ate sugar cubes if they were available and no grown ups were watching you, and I'd do it again RIGHT NOW if presented with the opportunity), so I HAD to have these! But then, they were so beautiful that I couldn't bring myself to eat them. I kept them in a drawer in my bedside table for years, then they were moved with all my other stuff when my parents moved. I did not eat the 50 year old sugar cubes, only because I figured they'd taste like what I imagine dust mites might taste like, but you have to admit they sure held up!

This is my student ID and activity card from spring semester of my sophomore year in college. If you look really closely, you will see that my tuition for the semester is printed on that activity card. Go ahead and look. I'll wait.... RIGHT?! $180.00, and that was for 12-17 hours. More or less than that was adjusted by the credit hour. Tuition at that same university now is $4,512 a semester based on 14 hours or $279 per credit hour. PER CREDIT HOUR.

And my last entry is something I found in my cedar chest, along with Archie comic books, Tiger Beat magazines, my Missouri notebook from 4th grade, and dozens of scripts from the days in high school theater. It's my Raggedy Ann and Andy paper dolls! These are also the last picture I took tonight in my poorly lit bedroom (poorly lit if you are trying to take photographs, that is; otherwise, it's very pleasant and warm lighting). I took this right after I fought with Nora over the tiny doll and the quarter, and I didn't have any fight left. She won. Notice how she's guarding them with her paw from her brother Finn. If I'd been faster on the draw, you would have gotten an action shot of Nora smacking Finn for getting too close.

Unbelievable that I still have all this!

T is for Time To Bring These Beauties Out Of The Closet....

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

I have a friend who has been waiting for the other shoe to drop ever since I posted the link for "C is for Communication, 70s Style" on my Facebook page. She made this innocent comment:

I shall call this friend (and former roommate) Regina Flange. This is a photo essay showing what happens when:

a) you are really bad at blackjack

b) you are really bad at drinking games

c) you are really bad at drinking at all

d) the others playing the drinking game are aware of all of the above and cheat while you are in the bathroom with your cards unprotected, causing you to take yet another drink

A word about the room pictured. This was a furnished, two-bedroom apartment that we had recently moved into after moving out of the dorm. It had bright green variegated shag carpet (unfortunately not pictured) that totally clashed with absolutely anything else in the universe looked fab with the plaid tweed sofa in shades of brown. We moved in as the frat boys who lived there previously were moving out (and yes, that means it didn't get cleaned before we moved in), and as the guys were carrying out the last of their stuff, one of them said, "Whoever gets the bedroom on the right, just wanted to let you know the bed squeaks." Then he laughed himself out of the apartment. We did have fun living there (we lasted 6 months before finding better digs). We tried to cook, only setting fire to the kitchen once. We got scared when we had a mouse and had to run to the landlord's apartment to save us from whatever we thought a mouse was going to do to us. We temporarily adopted a stray cat who my parents then adopted and enjoyed for many years. We played lots of gin rummy. One of us spilled red nail polish on the bright green shag carpet, so when we moved, we put a chair over it and never had to pay for the damage. And we had exactly one evening of wild partying (it was soooo not wild).

These were taken B.B. (before blackjack)

D.B. (during blackjack and I was fake drinking)

D.B. real drinking

 

A.B. Guess which one of us lost the drinking game?

Oh, to be 18 again and in your first apartment!

S is for Secrets

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

Have I mentioned before I had a lot of dolls? I had a lot of dolls. 

This is Baby Secret. She has had a wonky left arm since I can remember. Her hair used to be in a ponytail, but I took it down and tried to make her wear it other ways. Note to doll manufacturers: don't make a doll whose hair can only go in ONE style. Baby Secret is mostly bald except for the hair around her hairline and a weird strip around the middle to make the pony tail. That was very disturbing to me then, and it's still disturbing to me now.

This is the back of her head with pony tail
 down and it's just wrong

Baby Secret was released by Mattel in 1965. I probably got mine in 1966. She whispered when you pulled a string AND HER MOUTH MOVED. I never thought of it as creepy, but in retrospect, yeah, I guess it was. Here's the commercial from 1966 to prove it (fun fact: the little girl is none other than Eve Plumb, aka Jan Brady!):

 

I didn't play with Baby Secret like I did with my doll Cindy. She wasn't a baby doll to me but more of a novelty. Most of the time, she was relegated to being a member of my doll classroom, but that's not all she was good for! I liked pulling her string and holding her against someone's face (usually my poor, patient mom's) and squealing with glee as Baby Secret chewed their cheek. I also liked sticking the end of my finger in her mouth after pulling the string and feeling her gumming it. It was also loads of fun to follow our cat around while pulling Baby Secret's string. Cats LOVE that....

Somehow, Baby Secret survived all this, plus a move to a new town while I was in college. She also survived the great basement flood, which got her relocated to my bedroom, and she survived my kids playing with her and is no worse for wear than anything I ever put her through. Sit back and enjoy a few words from her....

Tell me YOUR secrets! I'll never tell....

Fuzzy Thankfuls

 I'm spending the weekend running errands for my dad, trying to catch up on reading A to Z Challenge posts, and watching a documentary series on World War II. It's a full weekend! Now to get my Ten Things of Thankful posted, write tomorrow's A to Z, and keep wading through A to Z and TToT posts - whew!

On Monday, the toddler teachers at our school found an itty bitty kitten hidden under the protective cover on the sandbox. I saw a mama cat in our parking lot earlier when my class took a walk, but she was nowhere to be found. The kitten was brought to me in a shoebox, and I snuggled her into a soft blanket while we waited for animal control to pick her up. She needed some loving care and a foster home, and the humane society was just the place for her to get it. Don't think I wasn't tempted to keep her, but poor Nora wouldn't have been able to take another sibling!

Her little ears are still folded down.

She was hungry and wanted her mama and
was nom nomming the blanket

Shhhh! Baby's sleeping!

So I'm thankful baby was found.

I'm thankful the kindest man came to get her and take her to a safe place.

I'm thankful there are people out there who can foster kittens and not keep them all for themselves.

I'm thankful I know that I am not one of those people who can foster kittens because I WOULD keep them all and then Nora AND my husband would move out.

And I'm thankful for the Book of Secret Rules or the Secret Book of Rules that says if you're killing it with the A to Z Challenge and can't put two thoughts together to make a list of ten things of thankful. then you don't have to!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

R is for Readin', 'Ritin', and 'Rithmetic

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

I was never much for 'rithmetic. As I wrote in M is for McDonalds, I hid my hand and counted on my fingers when I had to add up an order back in the days before computers when we had to use an order pad, a pencil, and a tax chart. I was terrible at memorizing multiplication facts, and when we did the timed tests, like, every single freakin' day of fourth grade, my friend Liz and I would trade papers when we graded them and write in each other's missed answers.  I didn't know how to do long division correctly until I taught fourth grade and had a teacher's manual. I barely passed Algebra I and II in high school, and when no one made me take more math than that, I filled my schedule with English classes and drama classes and lightweight social studies classes such as Psychology and Sociology.

I always loved readin', although I hated when we had to read aloud in class, as I didn't like everyone looking at me. I loved the Ginny and Geneva books and the Cathy books by Catherine Wooley, as well as Jean Little's books. When I was in fourth grade, the librarian introduced me to the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, and I loved them so much, I bought the entire series, book by book. I still have them, and my kids read them and loved them, too. 

And 'ritin'? If I was predestined to be a teacher, then I was also predestined to be a writer, because I reveled in writing papers in my literature classes. I began keeping a journal in 8th grade and wrote in one nearly daily for almost 20 years.

In my cedar chest in my old room, I found this story from one of the English classes I took to avoid math:

"Z was once a piece of zinc, tinky, winky, blinky, tinky, tinkly, minky piece of zinc."

"Read it again!"

Grandma cast her eyes heavenward.

"Just one more time, please? Pretty please, with sugar and cinnamon on top?"

Grandma groaned, "All right, one more time, but that's all for today."

She began reading, with the little girl snuggled against her, "A was once an apple pie, pidy, widy, tidy, pidy, nice insidy, apple pie...."

As the little girl listened to her grandmother's smooth voice reading the alphabet, she thought about her grandma. When she was about three years old, she received a doll, a beautiful, baby doll named Cindy. Dyanne was sure Cindy was a real baby; well, sometimes, anyway. She was so sure, she had her grandma show her how to hold Cindy like mommies hold their babies. Grandma showed her once, but sometimes, Dyanne forgot how, and Grandma would show her again and again.

"H was once a little hen, henny, chenny, tenny, henny, eggsy-any little hen?"

Grandma knew how to do real baby things with Cindy. She taught Dyanne how to wrap a blanket around Cindy and how to burp her. Grandma showed her how to do these once, twice, again and again.

"N was once a little needle, needly, tweedly, threedly, needly, wisky, wheedly, little needle."

Every time Grandma came for a visit, she was confronted with Cindy and The Nonsense Alphabet Book. Every time, again and again. However, when Dyanne was seven years old, her Grandma died of cancer. She didn't understand very much, just that Grandma wouldn't be back to read to her, or show her how to hold Cindy the right way, not ever again. She didn't think about her Grandma a lot until several weeks later. She woke up in the night, crying, and her mother came to comfort her. Although she was seven, she understood the sense of never. It was a deep, dark, unreachable hole, untouchable to all.

"Z was once a piece of zinc, tinky, winky, blinky, tinky, tinkly, minky, piece of zinc."

My mom had kept a mimeographed copy of this little story that I had forgotten all about until now. Note: one thing I left out of the story is my grandma being there when I gave Cindy a haircut. I remember her saying, "Why did you cut off all Cindy's pretty hair?" And why? Because I thought it would grow back, of course!

Not my actual copy; mine looks much worse.

Cindy has been with me always. She has moved to apartments and houses
all over the country, spending her retirement in my little rocking chair. 
She is wearing my baby shoes, but some 30 years ago, I bought her 
a dress to replace the tattered one of mine she used to wear.
Photo cred to my husband, because I was out of town and needed
 a photo, and he nailed the shot in one try, although in all fairness,
Cindy is a pretty compliant model....

Q is for Quilt

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

My mother hated to sew.

Her aunt Edith (Ecie, as she was called by the family) was a beautiful seamstress. She made clothes for herself and her sister Daisy, as well as making clothes for my mom, including her wedding dress, which she made from a drawing my mom made of what she envisioned, and for me.

My mom did not get the sewing gene from Ecie, but in the 70s, probably as a cost-saving measure, she made herself some clothes. She put her sewing machine on the living room floor, so she could watch "Edge of Night" and "One Life To Live" as she worked, and she sat on the floor and operated the foot pedal with an outstretched leg. There was much snarling and swearing as she worked, but she did turn out some double-knit tank tops in all their glorious 1970s patterns and colors.

Quilting got a resurgence in the 1980s. My mom loved quilts, and she had many that had been pieced and quilted by her mother and Ecie, as well as some that dated back even further. These quilts were made with scrap fabrics left from making the family's clothing, as well as from feed sacks. The 1980s quilts were made with calico fabric in 1980s shades that had been selected and purchased just for the quilt project and were not made from random materials.

I do not know how she managed it, but a one of my mom's friends talked her into taking a quilting class. I believe the friend was able to convince her to take the class because, instead of piecing and sewing the design and stitching all of it together, and then quilting this voluminous  amount of fabric, they would be making a quilt one square at a time and quilting it as they went along, sewing each square together when all the squares were completed. How hard could it be?

My mom bought yards and yards of coordinated calico fabrics and cotton batting. She purchased a special wooden frame for making the quilt squares, and she set out to work.

Some time into the first square, and only a few days after starting the class and the initial excitement of making a quilt with the exact colors and patterns she had chosen, my mom remembered how much she hated sewing. Hated it. HATED it.

I found the quilt rack and fabric (already cut out into pieces and just waiting for her to sew them together) in a plastic bag in the back of my old bedroom closet a couple of weeks ago. I know she had high hopes of turning out a handmade quilt, and she meant well when she signed up for the class, but let's face it, she was NEVER going to make that quilt. She got mad and frustrated when she sewed a simple tank top with two seams and a hem!

The first (and last) square. She gets a lot of
credit for putting all the pieces together!

Perhaps the straw (or stitch) that finally broke
the camel's back....

This is how far she got with quilting the square....

My mom was no quitter. But she definitely wasn't a quilter, either!

P is for Picture Perfect

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

There were very few formal studio photos taken of me and my brother as kids, but I found two sets in the closet that are pretty perfect.*

Example 1 is from 1962. I was two years old; my brother was five:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

These photos were taken in 1973 or 1974, and I only know this because I remember having that dress in 8th grade, since I have ZERO independent recollection of having the photos done. They might have been taken during a session for a new pictorial directory at our church. I was 13 years old, and my brother was 16 or 17:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Approximately ten years later, in 1983, my brother and I had this photo taken as a gift for our parents. 

Could we have BEEN more 1983?! I'm wearing what was my favorite blouse and sporting a Pat Benetar-esque bi-level haircut. And yes, we color coordinated on purpose. My mom loved it, and it has been hanging in my parents' bedroom ever since.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So then who the damn hell are these two old people, anyway?

Ahhh, pretty as a picture!

*photo scanning cred to Nikki, because she will only read blog posts if she is in them