Crossing the Great Divide

What's this doing in my house IV?

Fourth in the Lee inspired Monday blogging phenomenon known by the catchy title 'What's this doing in my house?'

I believe the actual title is 'WTF is this doing in my house,' but Lee was nice and cleaned it up for those like me, more sensitive and shocked by such language...

Anyway, today is a good day to delve into the archives and share another photo, but in this case, the archive is the piece itself; the photo is fresh off the camera.

What you see is somewhat self-explanatory. It's a stagecoach. Ah, but there's some history behind this stage coach.

In December, 1968, my grandfather passed away, the first loss of my four grandparents. Death was a new thing in my life, Gramps being my first dealing with this inevitable aspect of life. In the aftermath of his death, my mom's sis hassled her over everything, basically wanted everything. My mom asked me what I'd like to have, and the 14 year old me wished for but one thing: the stage coach.

That stage coach represents all I have beyond memories of my mom's dad. He was a gentle man, a rather quiet man. I divebombed him once from the second floor of this home, where, then without railing in the hall, I leaped as he passed below. That earned me stictches above my eye. A few weeks ago, the electrologist doing my brows said "did you know you have a hole there? A hole meaning absent of hair. Yup, that would be the lasting consequence of when I kamakazied grampy.

Every Saturday in late afternoon, my dad would trod off and pick up my grandmother and grandfather. We'd stop at a German Jewish bakery, which simply had the best baked goods east of the Mississippi and west of the Nile, pick up four loaves of freshly baked, steaming hot, right out of their brick oven, rye bread, a box of maple frosted square, unholedm doughnuts (that weighed about a pound apiece)  and head for our home. Dinner was simple, Saturday nights would find my sis threatening not to eat, for she would barf if having to consume hot dogs, so for her, she was presented with burger to go with her Boston baked beans. We were such a creative family! Yanno, I still do love Boston baked beans...

anyway, part of that meal.. the part everyone most enjoyed, was that rye bread. Goddess, that was tasty. Melted butter quickly disappearing into a slice's nooks and crannies, I've never tasted anything comparable since. The bakery closed when I was in high school, it was but a hole in the wall of a building to be demolished, but also know the family was offered a bundle by other bakers for their recipe - they never sold. Pity.

And that brings us around again to the stage coach. Yassee, not only was that stage coach my grandfather's, all that I have tangible to trigger memories of him, but...

he carved it. By hand.

What's this doing in my house III

Thrice I've partaken of Lee's "What's this doing In My House? Monday. Of course, wouldn't ya know she hasn't posted one yet? No fair!

In any case, I'm going for it once again, this time with two contributions.

The first is a creation of my eldest, yanno, the one who could have successfully majored in art? Well, here's something from her Early Years, somewhere around 1990-91 or so.

I used to put my thumb and index finger together, hum like a bee, and pretend I was going to sting her. She would scream and run all over the place - with me not far behind.

And so one day, she sat down, and very industriously created this eight inch square "don't sting me" warning poster, which of course,much to her embarrassment, I've both savored and saved through the last 15 years. It actually sets on the upper left corner of my dresser mirror. Gotta love the old kidlet stuff! Unfortunately, it's one of the few pieces of R memorabilia that made it here with me... but it is treasured.

One day R was stung by a bee... right smack on her behind. She wasn't very happy, and of course, the mantra thereafter was R was bit in the butt by a beeeeeeeee...

And a bit older, 16-17 years or so older than R's anti-buzz poster is pottery by someone who most diffinitely was anything but anti-buzz. My roomie in year 3 of college, he was an art major and overgrown Spanky and Our Gang wannabe. Excitable, twice my size, and oh so talented with clay, I wrangled this from him at the end of the school term, along with two other pieces, now residing with my ex. This one though... is my favourite, by far. It normally sets in the back, right corner of this credenza. Currently, nothing resides within it. Back in my party days, that is pre-birth of R, it would occasionally harbour an ounce of some dried out plant. Oh, I still continued a bit afterward, T threw a 30th b-day party for me a few months later, and well... I passed out on the basement floor. Our next door neighbour, later a deacon at the town church, was right there partying it up as well.

My ways had begun to change before then... such things affected my heart rate, and it was no longer fun. With R's birth, the first damn thing I did was start wearing a seat belt, knowing that discussion would one day be on our list of topics... better to have her see me buckled up. And given the no fun aspect of things, best to hang that up as well. When that discussion came around the dial a discussion with your child meter, she heard the truth - and what my expectations were.