Tag Archives: family

Gift Giving, The Lesson of the Aprons

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By Karen

I write this as we move into what is, for many of us, the biggest gift giving season of the year. Some of us are approaching the season in “business as usual” mode, some are looking at gifts and consumption in a new minimalist light, while still others are economizing based on need to do so. But, all of us want the gifts that we give to be enjoyed and appreciated.

Everything I’ve done lately is marked by sentimentality and a sense of family. I’ve done a lot of looking back as Russ and I have been working to open our Six Degrees Store on Etsy. We’ve entirely rearranged the house, turning one bedroom into a studio, moving many things to the attic and making all of our spaces more artisan friendly. One thing I came across while turning my home upside down was a stack of my great grandmother’s aprons. We called her Grandma Pill. My mother gave her that name when she was a child because she took a lot of medication. Grandma Pill wore an apron every day, all day. It was part of her life’s uniform and she wasn’t dressed until she had it on.

When I was a child, I taught myself to sew making clothes for my dolls. One day my grandmother, we called her Mimi, got out the pattern to make her some new aprons for her mother. I decided that it was time to graduate from doll clothes to making gifts and I asked if I could sew Grandma Pill’s new aprons. Mimi granted my request, handed me the pattern and showed me some available fabric to choose from. The pattern was made of newspaper. It had evolved over time as Grandma Pill tweaked it now and then and it had been traced time and again as each new original became worn. It was plain, with just a little shape and two pockets.

I wanted my gift to be special. I pulled out some of the fancy patterns that I had my eye on out from underneath the large oak buffet and suggested that I might make one of them. Mimi said “Well, you can make one of those if you want to, but if you’re making an apron for mother, you need to use this pattern because this is what she wants.” I was disappointed. I was still in Barbie doll land, and Barbie is a fashion doll. Plain was not really what a little girl who was hoping to make something special really wanted to think about, but Mimi had a very certain tone in her voice and I wanted to make the apron, so I did what she told me to. I made a plain, ordinary everyday apron. It was hard to make my child’s yearning heart to handle plain, but it was exactly what Grandma Pill wanted, and it was special because her great granddaughter made it. She was delighted. I didn’t learn any significant new sewing skills that day, but I did learn a lot about giving.

Borrower’s Bookcase

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By Karen

The first time my lodging came with a lending library I was in Turrialba, Costa Rica at a bed and breakfast. The bookcase was centrally located near the dining area. Don’t imagine a Victorian cottage when I say this, rather something elegantly rustic with open space, cool breezes, hammocks, tropical plants and a lot of fresh fruit on the menu. The large bookcase had a sign the said “Take one, Leave One”, permission for which I was grateful because I found a book that I couldn’t put down and didn’t have time to finish.

Later I stayed at the lodge in Volcanoes National Park on the “big island” of Hawaii and there was a bookcase headboard. These books were hard bound and didn’t seem to offer themselves up the way the books in Costa Rica did, but I appreciated the more temporal loan none the less. I decided that staying in the kind of place that offered books was the ultimate luxury. Then I didn’t see it much anymore for a long time.

I remembered how much I enjoyed the loan of books while away from home when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. I was collecting donations from around my home. I was cash poor and beyond that, I don’t like to throw cash indiscriminately at a problem when I don’t know how it will be spent. I had been through hurricanes before. I knew what kind of things you need when your front porch is two blocks away and there’s a tire on your bed. I sent the obvious things. Linens, first aid supplies, air mattresses, extra travel toiletry kits that the airlines gave away on international flights, spare suitcases. I also went through all my bookcases and pulled out every book I was willing to part with, and a couple that I knew I would replace. They were books that I would enjoy reading if I were stuck in the Astrodome or some other shelter for an indefinite period of time.

I was reminded of these things on a recent trip to south Florida. We were camping in the Everglades without electricity, thus no radio. The sky was clear, but just as we were leaving a storm came quickly and we were caught in the rain, a cold wind driven rain leaving us soaked and shivering. (Now we have a wind-up solar radio with NOAA channels).

Places to warm up and dry off are few and far between on the Tamiami Trail. When you do make it to civilization, you find yourself in the high rent district just as suddenly as that storm rose, and we drove north along the interstate for some time looking for a place to stay for a price we’d pay. Beyond tired and not quite dry, we finally stopped at a mid-level chain hotel. They had the standard free breakfast room adjacent to the lobby, and in the corner beside a built in bench seat was a book case. Seeing that unexpected bookcase was the emotional equivalent of a warm fire.

My love of a book borrowed probably started in childhood. My father had a particular book that he liked to share with anyone who seemed interested. We joked about how many copies he must have bought over time, and still I have no idea what that number might be, only were it was that we looked to see if a copy was currently residing in the bookcase.

There has been a borrower’s bookcase at the YMCA where I work out for many years. I am seeing them in more and more places and they are filled with promise. The promise of a good story or idea shared, the promise of recycling, the promise of a little enlightenment or levity. The last book that I put into a borrowers bookcase was given to me by a roommate from Canada while I was traveling in Japan. Her other book went home with a Czech. It is not just a shared book, but a well traveled book. I wonder if the books in these cases were tracked like dollar bills on “Where’s George?” or a Geocoin if the story of how the book came to be in the bookcase might be as interesting as the book itself.

Here’s my suggestion. If you are in charge of a space where people linger, if there is space, even for a small book case, put one there. If you are on a low budget, get the bookcase at a charity thrift store and do a good deed while you’re doing a good deed. If you do not have books to share, you can get your seed books there too, or get them when the public library has its annual purge, another way to increase the footprint of your good deed. Little Free Libraries are good too!

The Indoctrination of our Children

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by Karen

I watched the Sunday Morning news program Face the Nation this Labor Day weekend and learned that there is a certain level of controversy and turmoil over the planned message of President Obama to be played for students at school with the expected message that education is important. There is apparently some concern that this represents indoctrination. I will totally set aside the fact that indoctrination and assimilation along with keeping children out of the workforce were among reasons stated for establishing a national public school system in the first place. This is not a historic commentary.

First, I am familiar with those ubiquitous television sets in the nation’s school systems that would allow such a a message to be played for the students. Many, were provided “gratis” by corporations, but they didn’t actually provide them for free, they provided them in exchange for access to your children. They require that an advertising message be played and this is commercial indoctrination in the form of advertising. I could spend an entire post on the belief that the benefit of providing televisions to schools is worth the cost to the corporation, but the benefit of receiving televisions on that basis is not worth the cost of the mind space to our children.

Second, there were altruistic attempts to indoctrinate my children while they were in school. Altruism, is not usually as well funded as commercials and not nearly so sophisticated in levels of persuasion or the ability to push psychic buttons. It starts pretty well, but it does not always stick. My children came home saying that smoking cigarettes was terrible and they repeated the indoctrination they received with the fervor of a religion. The one of my children that seemed most sincere and devout is also the same one that began to smoke in high school and has been addicted to cigarettes ever since, something that damages her health, strains her limited budget and makes me sad for the burden it puts on her.

Third, the school systems I have been involved with have always handled controversial messages as well as possible (not that I see where there should be controversy in an acting President taking the time to encourage children to excel in school and take ownership of their education). Sex education, for example, was something that the school system my children attended handled well. The films (one for boys and a separate on for girls) were available for parents to see ahead of time and each child had to have a signed permission slip in order to see the film. I did not personally go in to view the films, but a trusted friend did. She said, to abbreviate things, that the two different films reinforced male/female stereotypes and that made her angry, but that they were technically accurate and she wanted her daughters to see the see the film that was produced for them. Reinforcing stereotypes does not please me, but when special interest groups weigh in on a topic like this, the resulting product is rarely the best possible message, but the best possible compromise, not at all the same thing.

When one of my children showed up with the permission slip I asked “Do you know what this is about?” Answer: “yes”. I then asked ” Do you want to see the film?” Answer: “Not particularly, but I won’t know what all the jokes are about if I don’t”. The response was unexpected, but the point was important and I signed the paper. At first glance, knowing what the jokes are about may seem less than the important point, but jokes actually show a sophisticated understanding of a subject. Understanding them is part of being aware of what happens in the social environment you share. More importantly, you should be able to tell two things about those jokes. 1. Are they funny? and 2. Are they fair? Yes, these two things are different. I can appreciate the humour and irony in jokes that do not seem fair to me and are not based on the way I see the world. It is part of being able to appreciate points of view that I do not share, something that I think that we as a nation are loosing a grip on. I can also tell when a joke goes too far.

The ability to discern fairness is really the big issue here, whether you are actually talking about jokes or about comments and opinions. If a person never sees the original act, idea or information that is being criticized, how could that person possibly know if it is fair or have any way to access what is being said? One person makes a criticism to another and it travels like the famous Normal Rockwell painting “Gossip” so that the original comment is not even recognized by the time it gets back to it’s originator. The vast majority of media also exaggerates in the same way in an attempt to gain market share. And the special interest groups? Pound the drums, rally the cry, encourage donations and the gulf widens.

However, if the criticism is anchored to an original source with which everyone has familiarity, there is some basis for keeping the logarithmic exaggeration, at least in part, under control. Everyone benefits when there is some basis to approach the world from something similar to a realistic point of view. Real conversations minus the huffing and puffing can occur. If your positions hold water they will stand up and if they do not…

So what exactly am I saying? Indoctrination is pervasive, most dangerous in the forms that we don’t think about or recognize, and as often as not unsuccessful, regardless of the level of altruism behind the message. Children and school systems are smarter than we give them credit for, and our children should not just be given the opportunity to think for themselves, it should be encouraged. And the best part? When you teach your children to think for themselves they are a lot more interesting. They even come back after growing up and teach you things, good things, important things, from time to time.

So if you would like some original source material with which to base your opinion on this particular issue, it will be available today at http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Apollo 11: Looking Back, and Forward

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Today I find myself remembering a particular visit home to grandma’s house. My grandmother, Mimi, we called her lived in Evergreen, Alabama and we lived in Nederland,Texas, so it had been a long drive for my small attention span. Are we there yet? My mother (in the wisdom that is ingrained in a mother’s DNA) told me to look for the big red clay hill and then I would know we were there. Magic, no more questions, but then jumping excitement when the big clay hill beside Baggett’s service station was spotted.

This was not my earliest memory, but it was the earliest memory that I can date specifically because it was the summer of Apollo 11. We had traveled all that distance in a white mustang to visit with my grandparents in their antebellum home with the high ceilings and the crystal chandeliers. These were the summers of homemade ice cream, watermelon seed fights and Papa’s dog Peanut howling at the horn when the freight train came through town.

Shortly after we arrived the lunar landing was aired on television. I remember the image of my grandfather and his reaction better than I remember the actual landing and my own reaction. It was many years before I understood the significance of the history that was taking place or to appreciate its place for him.

Papa sat on a round piano stool next to the upright piano. It was the kind of stool that had claw feet over glass casters and a wide wooden screw in the center underneath the seat allowing you to turn the seat to adjust the height. I rarely saw Papa without the business shirt he wore every day, but on this day he wore a sleeveless undershirt. When they landed, he scratched his head and said “Golee”, not nearly as exaggerated, but somewhat reminiscent of Gomer Pyle from the Andy Griffith show. I don’t remember that being a word he used often.

As I grew older I began to hear my grandfather speak about his life and the things that he had seen. One of the things Papa remembered was when the first person brought the first car to town. I was struck by how much technology had changed from the time he was a small boy until the time I was a small girl. I watched the lunar landing with a man who knew a life before automobiles came into his.

Changing technology is constant and I have seen my share. I remember large cell phones with larger batteries, life before the Internet and I also remember my daughter questioning me as though I had misspoken “What do you mean you didn’t have VCRs when you were a kid?” Still, I’ve never seen change like he saw change. Trying to put myself in my grandfather’s shoes is difficult. This person who often drove me to Sleepy’s Drive-In for a soft serve ice cream cone after dinner remembered when it was the cost of hay that fueled transportation rather than the cost of gas and I was with him while we watched men walking on the moon. He saw many more changes before he left us.

Today as we look back and marvel that many Americans carry more sophisticated technology in their pockets than the computing systems that took men to the moon, I can only wonder what changes I may see when I have seen as many years as my grandfather did. When my son was young, I subscribed to MIT Technology Review because I knew that he would read it if it was sitting around the house. Every once in a while I’d be half listening as he, who was also a Star Trek fan, would talk about something he had read and I would have to stop him to check and see if he was off in the imaginary world, or if it came out of MIT. I am reminded of Arthur C. Clark’s quotation “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” I look forward to seeing the magic that will be our future and I hope that we use it well.

A Garrison Keillor 4th of July

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Celebrating the 4th of July with fireworks is a part of what makes every summer whole. Last year we went to the beach. This year we stayed close to home and started the day in Marietta Square looking for a watermelon. We arrived in the late morning and were met by a dozen or more people on unicycles, possibly from the front end of the parade. We parked several blocks away and saw a bit of the end of the parade as we walked into the square. Some people were still enjoying it from atop the newly renovated Strand Theater. After the parade there was music on the bandstand and some of the regular farmer’s market vendors joined the food and craft vendors for the holiday, unfortunately, not those selling watermelon. It was good to see water in the fountain again, now that we are out of drought status. There was a bungee trampoline with tiny fearless humans flying through the air and home made style ice cream powered by a hit and miss engine. We ate at Marietta Pizza Company where Sweetwater Brewery was promoting their “Save the Hooch” campaign, got our watermelon at Harry’s Farmers Market and decided to see the fireworks in Alpharetta at Wills Park.

Wills Park is always a treat. We came early to have a picnic and enjoy the park filled with other families. There seemed to be a few more side attractions here than what I had noticed in years past, a bandstand, magician, face painter and food vendors. Stu Enloe was there with a hot air balloon inflated and on static display. As I watched families celebrate with football, frisbees, rice crispy treats and sparklers I had a sense of time standing still because this day was so much like every other 4th of July as far back as I can remember. When the fireworks began the crowd was alive with loud cheers and clapping.

It seemed doubly appropriate that PBS aired an American Masters episode featuring Garrison Keillor over the holiday weekend. It was not specifically a holiday program, but deeply American all the same, and no one else can pull you into his imagination to make you feel like you grew up in that same small town with him in quite the same way. During the program Mr. Keillor asked his audiences to join him in singing the Star Spangled Banner and it captured his intent precisely. He said that singing in that way brought people together. He talked about believing that our country was good and that he didn’t believe it was angry people who made it that way. He had given the example of angry talk show hosts. Mr. Keillor said something else that really reached me. He said that when he was young his deepest fear was to live an ordinary life. I remembered intensely wanting things to be bigger and more special when I was young. But, then he said he realized when his daughter was born, he had a sense that it was ordinary and that was when he realized that ordinary was good enough. I had been enjoying a very ordinary 4th of July while at the same time I was appreciating the extraordinary nature of it all when I heard this. Yes, Mr. Keillor, I agree. Ordinary is good enough.

This Schoolhouse Rocks!

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When I was in grade school I loved Schoolhouse Rocks’ “I’m Just a Bill up on Capitol Hill”. It had personal meaning for me because my father made it come alive. He was the Chairman of the County Commission in rural, south Alabama, so government seemed reachable from an early age. Being a part of forming government came into my consciousness when a guest came over one evening. I was just young enough to be amused by the fact that his name was Rhodes Johnston and he was also a Rhodes Scholar; and I was just old enough to be impressed, both by the Rhodes Scholar status (mother explained that it was quite an accomplishment) and by his association with National Geographic. Mr. Johnston and my father were writing a bill for the state legislature. I think it had to do with one of the local rivers. I later learned that the bill passed. Of course it did, my Daddy wrote it! Like most children I saw the world of the possible as being at least as large as my parent’s accomplishments and the lesson stuck.

Years later I joked with a political science professor about sitting down on the living room floor to write a bill (yes, they sat on the floor to write it). Her eyes widened a bit and she said that it wasn’t that easy. I never explained why I made the comment, but I did eventually ask her for a recommendation to a study abroad program in Central America. I didn’t expect it to lead anywhere, but I asked the questions anyway. I asked my professors “Would you like to write a recommendation?”. I asked Grandma Ed “Would you like to keep the kids for the summer?”. I asked all my questions and filled out the application. Before long that fat envelope that means “yes” was delivered to my mailbox, my children were visiting Grandma for the summer and I experienced the tropical cloud forest. It was not legislation, but it was a dream. I was awed by the colors, textures and sounds that were the cloud forest. I came to believe that if something so beautiful could exist, there must be something right in the world and I was able to experience it because I kept moving toward something I thought was an impossible, or at least an unlikely goal. The kids came down for a visit after the program and I was able to share all that I had spent the summer studying with them, plus a little more.

This was not the first time I met with unexpected yes. The first time may have been when I was twenty. My brother-in law died in the service of his country and I was moved to write an op-ed piece. His brother, now my ex-husband, gave me the “Aren’t you adorable?” look when I showed him my work. The L. A. Times was better for my ego. They published it.

Years later, I began to design clothing. I called my favorite magazine Creative Needle, and asked if they would like to publish my work. They did. My favorite designer saw that work and used my design on her wedding dress. These are not world changing events, but they are life changing events. When your work, whatever it is, is appreciated by the people you admire it feeds the spirit. It gives you the audacity to hope, to keep seeing opportunity and to follow it even when you are certain that failure is just right around the corner.

A Girl’s First Fish

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moonpie1

My father was always the fisherman bringing home ice boxes full to share with friends and strangers. The family albums were papered with photos of the bounty. That was before he began to practice catch and release. Fishing was his greatest sport and passion.

One day, as most children do, I decided I wanted to be included in the adult activities. I asked my father to teach me to fish. He readily agreed. But, I didn’t find myself in a boat very quickly. First I had to learn to cast. I envisioned water as being a part of that process, but Dad had other plans.

He bought me an inexpensive starter rod and reel, showed me how it worked, then took a large nail and bent the pointed end around like a “p” making it into a dummy fishing lure. Dad taught me to tie a fisherman’s knot while attaching this homemade lure to the end of my line and took me into… the front yard to show me that the nail made an effective weight at the end of my line. He showed me how it wouldn’t catch on anything the way a real lure with hooks would. He told me that we would fish when I could hit a target.

I was sorely disappointed. Dad was right. The nail didn’t get caught on anything, and I could have stayed there all day throwing my line and practicing… alone in the front yard. This wasn’t at all what I expected. There was no trip down dirt roads and through the forest, no boat ride, no RC Cola and no Moon Pie. I stayed there and practiced for a little while, but my attention wandered and I was soon distracted with dolls and crafts.

I still wanted that fishing trip though. Every once and a while I’d ask and each time I did Dad would remind me to practice. Every once an a while I’d take my nail lure to the front yard for a few minutes and see if I could hit a target.

Eventually I demonstrated the (low) level of expertise that Dad expected and our first trip was planned. We went to a local pond. We both sat in the sun casting and enjoying the beautiful day, Dad with his practiced elegant movements and me doing well to come pretty near where I intended. Of course, I’m sure it was a set up. I’m sure I was pointed straight at all the best spots so that it would be hard for me to miss out on catching something. Then it happened. My bobber started to bob. I had my instructions…and I had my Dad.

For the most part fishing with Dad was a very quiet activity, but once that bobber started going, so did Dad. He was more excited than I was. “Careful! See! Wait! Wait! Set the hook! NOW! Set the hook! You lost him! No. No, You still have him! I thought you’d lost him! That’s a nice one! That’s a really nice one. I’ll bet he weighs 2 pounds. That’s really big for this pond. You did well.” He scooped my bass into the net and asked me if I wanted to keep it. I did. I wanted my bass for supper.

I caught the only fish that trip! I was so proud. I out fished my Daddy on my very first try and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. He was proud too and I could feel it. I couldn’t wait to go home and share the news with Mom. I ran in the back door and told her all about it in the kitchen. She was happy too, and as soon as my story was done Dad handed me a filet knife and told me to go outside to clean my fish. Eeuwgh, my nose wrinkled. “I don’t know how”

So, I was promptly armed with instructions from both of my parents at once. My choices were few, I went out and cleaned the fish on the designated board underneath the pecan tree and later that night I enjoyed fresh fish for supper.

Before it was all over, I learned to bait my own hook and to clean my own fish. I learned that the things I wanted were worth practice and working for. Most of all, I learned what it was to feel my father’s delight in my accomplishments.

About my Dad, John M. Fleming
He was a long time fisherman, sports writer and author. He also wrote the collection of books on engines below.

Complete Guide To Outboard Engines

Trouble Shooting Gasoline Marine Engines

Complete Guide To Gasoline Marine Engines

Complete Guide To Diesel Marine Engines