Mad Drip and Hockey Sticks

Recently, thanks to blogging buddy Mitchell of Moving with Mitchell, I learned a new-to-me Gen Z slang term -- "mad drip" which means "excellent [fashion] style" apparently. Mitchell posted an old photo of himself and his sister Dale wearing the latest 1959 fashions (see it here). In my comment, I said --

Yes, you and Dale had mad drip indeed! I see Dale was wearing white bobby socks and black patent leather Mary Janes that were de rigueur at the time. When my Mom dressed pre-schooler me for Sunday School, I wore those too with a similarly puffy-skirted dress — but mine was pink, I’ll have you know, as befitted girls. Hahahahaha! I should do a post with a couple of incriminating photos of me in girly-girl drag.

So here's those incriminating photos now.

The date stamp on the photo's border says "FEB 60" but clearly that is NOT February-in-Canada weather, lol. The date stamp references when the photo was developed, not when it was taken, which must have been in the summer of 1959. So I was two years old.

I suspect this photo was taken a year or two later when I was three or four. Different dress but the shoes look the same. Given how fast kids grow, though, they must have been different ones. Probably the last time I wore a crinoline too. I remember putting up a huge fight against those damn scratchy things and refusing to ever wear one again.

Left to my own devices, this next photo shows what I preferred to wear. The cowboy hat was my brother's and usually I also wore his gun holster set of toy six-shooters, but my mother must have prevailed to leave those out of the snap that day.

Now, what's all this about hockey sticks?

See the white picket fence in the first photo and the white trellis in the second? They were both made from the shafts of broken hockey sticks. At that time, my father worked for Municipal Services in the town in which we lived. One of his duties was to work at the municipal ice rink in the winter. A lot of hockey sticks got (and still get) broken by players during games. In those days, sticks were real wood, not fibreglass or carbon fibre like today. My father got permission to take the now-discarded broken sticks home. He trimmed them into various lengths, sanded them, painted them white, and made them into our picket fences and trellises. He was imaginative and talented with carpentry skills that way.

An Important Month, At Least To Some Of Us

I'm not one of those people who hate recorders.

I LOVE THEM!

It's the only musical instrument I know how to play.

And yes, I learned it in school --

in Grade 7 when I was twelve years old.

We received weekly instruction for three months

from a young teacher who just happened

to know how to teach recorder.

She was stunned to learn that I didn't already know

how to read music, naively assuming that all kids

came from homes wealthy enough to afford

private music lessons. I did not.

Learning basic musical notation

and the recorder scale opened

a whole new world to me.

I've parlayed that short period of formal instruction

into a lifetime of playing recorders

for my own enjoyment,

not only the basic soprano recorder 

by also alto, tenor and bass recorders,

which I learned how to play on my own.

I never had the opportunity to play in an ensemble

until I was middle aged. Unfortunately, it revealed the limits of 

my musical education and proficiency, so I went back

to just playing for my own enjoyment.

That has always been enough for me.

These days, I can no longer play the recorder

due to my poor eyesight which prevents me

from being able to see the sheet music.

But who knows, perhaps once my cataracts are removed,

I will be able to play again. I hope so!

Recorders deserve more respect than they get.

Before the invention of the metal transverse flute,

recorders were a serious instrument in baroque and

other early music central to the European tradition.

Today, however, they are regarded as being only

a kid's plastic toy to torment everyone around them.

But hey, I still enjoy a good recorder meme

like anyone else! So here's a few to end on.

Proustian Involuntary Memory Triggers

I'm sure everyone is familiar with Marcel Proust's famous "madeleine moment" in his novel À la recherche du temps perdu (usually translated in English as In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past).

Proust coined the term "involuntary memory" to describe when a particular sensation experienced in the present (taste, smell, touch, sight, or sound) automatically triggers an unintended memory of the past. Proust knew involuntary memory triggers contain the "essence of the past" and are much more powerful and evocative than anything related to a voluntary memory. A triggered involuntary memory can be benign (as in nostalgic recollection) or traumatic (as in PTSD).

My own benign involuntary memory is triggered by the smell of creosote. Absolutely nothing can take me right back to childhood like that distinct and pungent aroma.

Why creosote, of all things?

As stated in my post last month concerning my red ride 'em pony -- 

"We lived right between the CPR railway tracks and the local Manitoba Telephone System pole yard, where MTS stored its telephone poles prior to use."

Back in those days, wooden railway ties and wooden utility poles were all heavily soaked in creosote to prevent rot and damage from insects, fungi, etc. found in the earth. Today, use of this carcinogenic coal-tar-derived wood preservative is restricted or obsolete, and therefore the smell of creosote is not as commonly encountered anymore. But for me, all it takes is one unexpected whiff somewhere or another and BAM, once more I'm a small child crossing the railway tracks to go to school or walking through the pole yard on a hot summer day.

Have you had a "madeleine moment"

and what sensation triggered it?

The Red Ride 'Em Pony

Following up the last post about my early cowgirl persona, this is how I got my ride 'em pony for Christmas in 1961 --

My carpenter father was very clever at making things. He had all the components for my ride 'em pony out in his workshop -- plywood for the head, thick dowels for the legs, surplus red and black exterior paint, a piece of yellow vinyl for the saddle left over from re-upholstering our kitchen chairs, scrap leatherette for the mane and reins, and a thick bunch of binder twine which he brushed out for the tail.

But I'm afraid he had to commit vandalism and petty theft to get the piece of round wood for the pony's body.

We lived right between the CPR railway tracks and the local Manitoba Telephone System pole yard, where MTS stored its telephone poles prior to use. One night under cover of darkness, my father snuck over to the unfenced, unlit pole yard and simply sawed off an appropriately-sized piece of telephone pole.

Perfect!

And here's my red ride 'em pony on that long-ago Christmas morning --

Early 1960s Fashion Review

Pixie haircut: check.

Pink girly-girl dress: check

White bobby socks: check

Black patent leather shoes: check

This is how my mother dressed me

for Sunday School when I was a pre-schooler.

She posed me for the photo too.

So ladylike and demure!

But this is how I dressed myself every day --

Pants: check

Jacket: check

Saddle shoes: check

My brother's cowboy hat: check

Missing from this photo of my ensemble:

my brother's toy holster set

with its silver six-shooter revolvers

"Howdy, pardner!"

And here I am riding the range

on the red ride 'em pony that

my father made for me.

I'll tell you how he made it

in my next post.

The Christmas Box

Earlier this year, Jenn of Coffee on the Porch with Me wrote a blog post about boxes and storage containers (click here to read). In it, she said --

When I was little, there were no such things as the big plastic storage containers, or clear ones (which are even better!) that exist in abundance today. Items were stored in cardboard boxes. A good solid cardboard box was a coveted thing.

In my comment on her post, I wrote --

I still have (and use) the good solid cardboard box that was our "Christmas box" when I was a kid. That friggin' box is about 60 years old now. It was sent to us full of chocolate and gifts from relatives in Switzerland. I even still use the original twine that my mother tied the box up with every year when she put it away. I should do a blog post next December about my vintage Christmas Box and taking traditions to extremes, LOL!

And now today's the day for that promised blog post! 

The Christmas Box arrived as an unexpected surprise package from Switzerland in the early 1960s. I still remember the intense excitement of that day! You couldn't buy Swiss chocolate in Canada then, so we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. We didn't even want to eat the chocolate because it was so beautifully presented in its little gift boxes. In fact, we never did eat one large, cute, foil-wrapped ladybug chocolate. We put it in the china cabinet and just looked at it for years.

We had no idea what "Maggi" referred to on the side of the box. Maggi Meat Seasonings and Sauces were not well known in North America (then or now) but are apparently staggeringly popular in Germany, India, the Middle East and parts of Africa. Maggi bouillon was invented in the late 1800s by a Swiss food production pioneer named Julius Maggi. Who knew?

On the top of the box you can see the faded, cramped, spidery handwriting which was our relatives' return address and our address in Canada (or Kanada as written in German).

And here's a bonus close-up of that now ratty twine!

For the entirety of my childhood, virtually all our Christmas ornaments and decorations were stored in this "good solid cardboard box" between celebrations. When it outlived that purpose at my parents' place, I volunteered to take it off my Mom's hands. I keep it purely for sentimental reasons, of course. This box means CHRISTMAS to me and always will.

You know,  I still use it for storing some of my larger Christmas ornaments (which actually don't get displayed all that often anymore). But they receive the honour of being kept in The Christmas Box.

And no matter how old I grow, I am always five years old again when I take this box out of storage, untie its twine and open it to reveal its seasonal treasures within.

[Photos © Debra She Who Seeks, 2022]

Divination With The Bible

When I was a kid, I learned two ways to use the Bible for divination purposes. I had no idea at the time (nor did anyone else around me, apparently) that the Bible is simply crammed full to the brim with damning strictures against divination, use of pendulums, dowsing, etc. On the contrary, we figured it must be okay to use the Bible for divination because the Bible is, like, you know, HOLY.

Anyway, the first method I learned was the ever-popular "Bible Dipping" technique, where you posed a question, randomly opened the Bible and (with your eyes closed) pointed to a verse which supposedly gave you Divine Guidance regarding the answer. This worked about as well (and about as clearly) as you might imagine. I can't remember who taught me this form of bibliomancy, but it was probably other kids at school (maybe even at Sunday School, LOL).

The other method was taught to me by one of my aunties and was used to determine that era's all-important and all-consuming question for girls -- "which boy will I marry?" (*gag*) 

To answer this, you needed to hold one of your necklaces over Bible verse Ruth 1:16, which reads --

And Ruth said: Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.

Then you asked: "will I marry [insert boy's name here]?"

If the necklace pendulum swung in a straight line, the answer was yes. If it swung in a circle, the answer was no. Or perhaps it was vice versa -- who remembers now? Hey, it was decades ago and my memory is not what it used to be.

I noticed, of course, that the Bible verse in question was spoken by one woman to another woman and so how was that really relevant to marital devotion? But this proved to be an issue for another time.

The oscillating pendulum method was also used to determine an unborn baby's gender. I think the same auntie taught me this as well. You didn't use a Bible for it, though. The pregnant woman simply put her wedding ring on a necklace and held it over her belly while asking "will my baby be a boy or a girl?" Straight line oscillation meant "boy" and a circular motion meant "girl." (Note the assumptions from 50+ years ago that every pregnant woman had a wedding ring and only two gender options existed).

So -- did anyone else out there learn these forms of (let's face it) witchcraft when you were young?

Thursday Art Date With Rain -- "Farm Life"

I did not grow up on a farm but my father did in the 1920s and 1930s, so I'm featuring his carving artwork today for Rain Frances' art prompt. When my Dad retired in the 1990s, he started carving scale-model replicas of the heavy horse teams and grain wagons he knew so well from his childhood on a Manitoba prairie farm. This is the set he carved for me, complete with a little collie dog as I had requested.

The grain wagon is a fully moveable, working replica made of balsa wood and pine. A friend with a home workshop let him borrow his lathe to shape the wheels. Otherwise, it is all hand cut, hand carved and assembled. A true piece of Canadiana folk art!

The grain box sits securely on the moveable axel system attached to the yoke tree to which the horses are harnessed.

The horses' harnesses are made of leather/vinyl with felt padding and chain/metal attachments. I always loved the tiny set of spread rings he made for each horse! The horses themselves are carved from pine.

 

In all the other team-and-wagon sets he made, the horses and grain wagon were fully painted in realistic colours, like this separate draft horse which my Dad carved and painted for me when he was first starting to carve --

But I requested that my team-and-wagon set be stained, not painted, for a bit more of an "artier" look. I've always loved the effect! And my set therefore looks different from everyone else's as well.

Artistic talent ran in my father's family. Life circumstances back in those days prevented access to art lessons or an art career, but my Dad definitely had undeniable talent. He expressed it the most in his carpentry work and in this later hobby of carving.

[Photos © Debra She Who Seeks, March 2022]

Top of the Fridge

Well, from the top of MY fridge, 

you'd get a pair of red silicone oven mitts, 

an antique bronze statuette 

and a red china teapot.

The bronze statuette is the only thing of value, I suppose.

 

It depicts a small cherubic Cupid hammering out

an arrowhead on his anvil. Someone gifted it to 

my paternal grandfather about a hundred years ago or so

because he and his father before him were both blacksmiths,

as well as being farmers and millers.

The statuette eventually came down to my father

and then to me to be its guardian.

Here's a back view so you can see

Cupid's cute little wings and bare bum.

So, what would we find 

on top of YOUR fridge, hmmm?

Tell all in the comments!

[Photos © Debra She Who Seeks, March 2022]

Thursday Art Date With Rain -- "Romance"

This week's Art Date prompt 

from Rain Frances is perfect

for February's upcoming Valentines Day!

I had to reach far back into

the Misty Vaults of Time

to find something suitable 

for this prompt.

I did this drawing sometime in the early 1970s

when I was a teenager in high school.

It was based on an illustration in 

some long-forgotten book by an artist 

whom I don't now remember either.

Pardon the blurriness of this closeup,

but it's the best I could get

through the glass.

If I were drawing this now, 

I would just ink the entire picture, 

but I was following the original very closely. 

Then and now, I almost never frame anything I do, 

but my hotelier grandma just happened to be 

getting rid of an old framed photo of a Greyhound Bus

(her hotel was also the local Greyhound Depot stop 

in her prairie town), so I used it to frame my drawing.

I made the mat out of a big piece of construction paper.

The original Greyhound photo was, I recall, 

somewhat similar to this old advert --

I should have just kept the framed photo "as is" --

apparently vintage Greyhound memorabilia

is worth a fortune now, LOL!

[Art and photos © Debra She Who Seeks, January 2022. 

Third photo is from the internet]

Are You a Fan of Michigan J. Frog Too?

When my sister and I were kids in the 1960s, one of our most favourite cartoons shown repeatedly on TV was One Froggy Evening. This 1955 Warner Brothers' cartoon was the epic saga of a singing frog who never sings when other people are around, thereby thwarting his hapless owner's exploitative dreams of wealth. We would laugh ourselves sick over this cartoon every single time!

YouTube doesn't appear to have the full cartoon available for download, but here's a video compilation of all its songs, which also illustrates the basic plot progression.

The original cartoon does not give the singing frog a name, but the character was so enduringly popular that he was subsequently christened "Michigan J. Frog."

So when I took that "Whimsical Creatures" art course in the fall, how could I resist making this greeting card and sending it to my sister?

[Art and photos © Debra She Who Seeks, November 2021]

A Long-Awaited Good Read

I don’t tend to hold grudges. I’m pretty good at just saying “fuck you” and moving on. However, I had the quiet, but immense, satisfaction last month of learning that a hated, abusive bully from my past had died. I’ve been periodically scanning the obits for years, waiting for this happy event.

If I lived closer to where the bastard is buried, I would immediately go dance on his grave. And by "dance," I mean "spit."

I still have a smile on my face about this news.

Now to plan that road trip . . . .

Bye Bye Robes

In all my years of writing this blog, I have never revealed my profession but now that I'm retired and well out of the work force, I can confess admit say that I was a lawyer for nearly four decades.

In Canada, the legal profession follows the British tradition of wearing barristers' robes when conducting matters in a superior court (but not in a lesser court or before an administrative tribunal). Luckily, the British practice of wearing those godawful white horsehair wigs was phased out in Canada eons before I became a lawyer.

Custom-fitted barristers' robes are an expensive proposition, whether 40 years ago or today. Buying them can be a real financial hardship for young lawyers, especially those of us who worked our way through law school and came out burdened with maximum student loans. So when I was called to the Manitoba Bar at the beginning of my career, my family pooled their resources and generously purchased robes for me as a gift. Here I am on the day of my Call, wearing brand-spanking-new robes --

My robes got a fair amount of use while I was in private practice but once I switched to a legal policy and legislative practice, no courtroom work was required so my robes were sidelined. Midway through my career, however, I moved to Edmonton and was called to the Alberta Bar as well. Once again my robes were needed for the courtroom ceremony. I'm pleased to say that everything still fit!

But when I retired, I faced a dilemma. What should I do with my robes? It's not like I could just put them on kijiji or drop them off at Goodwill! Luckily, news came just then from the Law Society of Alberta that a Crown Prosecutor had started a "Robes Bank" at the Edmonton and Calgary courthouses so that young lawyers, or lawyers who only occasionally appeared in court, could temporarily borrow a set of donated robes as needed and avoid the expense of buying their own. What a terrific (and long-overdue) idea!

So my robes, still in darn good condition despite their age, got bundled into a garment bag and donated to the Edmonton Robes Bank. I'm very pleased with that outcome.

Here's my last view of my faithful robes.

Going . . . 

Going . . .

Gone!

I hope they serve other lawyers well in the years to come.

Little Things Hurt The Most

Earlier this month, Jenn of Coffee on the Porch with Me wrote about stubbing and breaking one of her baby toes (click here to read her post). YOUCH!

This reminded me of my own painful experience in this area. Thirty-five years ago, I broke a baby toe one morning while stumbling around still half asleep and stubbing my bare foot against my full, heavy briefcase sitting on the floor.

It hurt so much I couldn't even SWEAR. I just stood there, bent over in incredible pain, my mouth silently opening and closing like a goddamn fish.

Broken baby toes can't really be set or fixed by doctors. So I followed the time-honoured procedure of simply taping it to my other toes, wearing tight, supportive shoes and limping around until it healed (which took forever). Even now, decades later, it still occasionally aches from arthritis due to that ancient breakage.

That was the end of my going barefoot at home, too. Since then, I always wear sturdy slippers to protect my toes against occasional, but inevitable, incidents of stubbing.