Thought I would get right back at this once fall settled in for real, and here it is January 3 and I haven't posted for months. So far I've had to retype most of the words I've entered because of typos.
Bruce was the typical "I want to help" 3-year-old. The Thanksgiving after my divorce, we were living in a very tiny 2-bedroom house, with linoleum floors, across the street from Maplewood School in Puyallup. Grandma French lived in an apartment in Tacoma and had come out to have dinner with us. Bruce had been helping set the table, etc., and the only thing left to go on the table was that bowl filled with potatoes. I didn't want him to carry it, but since he was being so helpful, I gave in, but told him to be very careful because if he should break the bowl, Mommy would cry. He got about 2 steps from the table and stepped on a drop of water, went down on his bottom and the bowlful of potatoes flew up in the air. While in the air, the bowl turned upside down, the potatoes landed first and the bowl right on top of it, making only a very small crack in the bowl. Poor Bruce was hysterical, so that's when I really learned that no thing is more important than a person--especially one of my own children.
For Christmas we gave each of our grandchildren a china cup that had once belonged to my Grandma French. I know most of them won't appreciate the cups at this time, but hope they do some day. That made me think that I have a couple of things that had belonged to my great-great Aunt Alta French. She was my Pop's Uncle Bill's wife and I met them when Vic was a baby. They lived in Indiana and were both in their 80's when I met them. (I believe they lived in Farmland, but would have to look it up to be sure.) Anyway, the two items I have are on the bottom shelf in the curio cabinet in the dining area. They are a china pitcher and bowl. I think that some day I want Bruce to have the bowl, but the story behind my reason is for all my kids, grandkids and others that I love.
Bruce was the typical "I want to help" 3-year-old. The Thanksgiving after my divorce, we were living in a very tiny 2-bedroom house, with linoleum floors, across the street from Maplewood School in Puyallup. Grandma French lived in an apartment in Tacoma and had come out to have dinner with us. Bruce had been helping set the table, etc., and the only thing left to go on the table was that bowl filled with potatoes. I didn't want him to carry it, but since he was being so helpful, I gave in, but told him to be very careful because if he should break the bowl, Mommy would cry. He got about 2 steps from the table and stepped on a drop of water, went down on his bottom and the bowlful of potatoes flew up in the air. While in the air, the bowl turned upside down, the potatoes landed first and the bowl right on top of it, making only a very small crack in the bowl. Poor Bruce was hysterical, so that's when I really learned that no thing is more important than a person--especially one of my own children.
Kelli reinforced that when she was 6. The remainder of her birthday cake was in a Princess House cake plate with dome. I didn't know she decided to help herself to a bit of cake until I heard the dome crash. It broke in half, so was fit only for the garbage can, but I was so thankful she hadn't been hurt that I didn't even care about the crystal dome. And, yes I gave her a piece of cake. (I can hear all of her brothers saying, "of course, that was Kelli, Mom's pet..."
Another thing on that shelf is a white china cup with gold trim that Anna May told me was one that she saw Grandma Stobie drink tea out of many times. She also told me the small brown teapot on top of the refrigerator belonged to Grandma Stobie and I would have no reason to doubt her as that company, Gleasons England, has been around for a long time. I can't tell for sure that it's Gleasons as the name has been nearly eradicated, but it is identical to the larger one I have. I did mistakenly wash it in the dishwasher, however, causing a lot of the salt (I suspect that's what it is) to "bleed" from the pottery.
I've probably thought of 50 stories or more that I've said, "I need to put that in my blog," but can't think of any more right now--at least not in a way they could easily be tied in. Besides that, I'm still making a typo about every 5 or 6 letters--maybe I was cursed this morning.
There was a man in church today that I went to high school with. Unfortunately I didn't get to talk to him because I went out early to take care of the coffee and he never came out to the fellowship hall. Anyway, both he and his dad had been ministers in the Free Methodist Church. Paul was really a nice guy--the kind that no one could say anything bad about. Just because of circumstances, our pastor helped me clean up after coffee, so I told him that Paul had been there and one of my few memories of him. He was an excellent typist and, as seniors, we had a map from U.S. News and World Report on the wall in our Civics classroom. It had various stories around the edges that we needed to study for a test on Friday and Paul was given the job of typing them and running them off on the ditto machine--bet he never got extra credit for that either. The one story I remember was when he made a very embarrassing (to him, but funny to everyone else) typo about Thor Heyerdahl being the first person to cross the Pacific on a "fart," the KonTiki. Now we all know how easy it is to get an "f" and an "r" mixed up while typing, but he sure got teased about it.
There was a man in church today that I went to high school with. Unfortunately I didn't get to talk to him because I went out early to take care of the coffee and he never came out to the fellowship hall. Anyway, both he and his dad had been ministers in the Free Methodist Church. Paul was really a nice guy--the kind that no one could say anything bad about. Just because of circumstances, our pastor helped me clean up after coffee, so I told him that Paul had been there and one of my few memories of him. He was an excellent typist and, as seniors, we had a map from U.S. News and World Report on the wall in our Civics classroom. It had various stories around the edges that we needed to study for a test on Friday and Paul was given the job of typing them and running them off on the ditto machine--bet he never got extra credit for that either. The one story I remember was when he made a very embarrassing (to him, but funny to everyone else) typo about Thor Heyerdahl being the first person to cross the Pacific on a "fart," the KonTiki. Now we all know how easy it is to get an "f" and an "r" mixed up while typing, but he sure got teased about it.
All for now. Will try to be a little more regular about this and if any of you who read it, would ask a question about something in my childhood, my kids' childhoods, or things that I remember hearing my elders tell, would be happy to try to write something about it.
