Petticoat Envy

Posted on May 20, 2013 by jphilo

The show’s been hot for several years, but I didn’t start watching it until lately. It didn’t take long to get hooked, since the show’s first season is at about the time my first childhood memories kick in. We were a from a family of teetotalers, so I can’t speak for the drinking. But the hair styles, the furniture, the technology, and the unrestrained smoking are truly a blast from the past.

So are the petticoats.

And that is something I can speak about having been a bit of a petticoat connoisseur way back then. Though that may not be strong enough word to describe my preoccupation with petticoats. My heart’s desire was to have a petticoat poofy enough to make my dresses stick out like the dresses on the front of the patterns Mom bought at the dry good store.

il 340x270.424497131 nrid Petticoat Envy

Photo Source

But, to get that kind of poof required several petticoats. My sister and I each had one petticoat like the one pictured below. Rows and rows of gathered netting were stitched to the cotton outer petticoat. But to get quality poof, a second half-petticoat of almost pure netting could be slipped (hence the name slip) under the full petticoat.

Photo Source

Our family, like many others, couldn’t afford two petticoats per daughter. So our full skirts, along with those of most of the girls we knew, had more droop than poof. And that returns the conversation to the subject at hand. When those Mad Med actresses wear shirtwaist dresses with wide skirts, their clothes exhibit maximum poof. We’re talking not just two petticoats. But three. Maybe even four. And I covet every one of them.

Because I have petticoat envy.

And I’m not ashamed to admit it. In fact, if the show was casting extras for a crowd scene, I would audition in a heart beat. And I wouldn’t care if it was a non-speaking part. I wouldn’t care if they edited me out of any shot I was in. I wouldn’t care if the pay was lousy. Or nonexistent. As long as I walked away with a picture of me wearing a dress with enough petticoats to achieve maximum poof, I would be happy.

And resolved never to wear an under-petticoat again.

Because, if memory serves me right, those gathered layers of netting were extremely scratchy. So scratchy they went out of fashion and never made a come back. Except as an outside layer of foo-foo, a style which is way cute on a 6-year-old, but not nearly so cute on a 56-year-old.

Then again, it wouldn’t hurt to try one on…

Is It Time to Up our Homeowner Insurance?

Posted on March 25, 2013 by jphilo

The other day, II had lunch with a friend who’s a junior in high school. On the way to our favorite Chinese restaurant, we drove by the former site of Bryant Elementary School. It used to look like this:

Now it looks like this:

We both commented about how weird it was for the building where we had many good memories (I used to teach there) obliterated.

The conversation made me think of what’s happened to the other workplaces in my past. Sky Ranch for Boys, where Hiram and I worked from the late 70s through the early 80s closed a few years back. Several of those buildings have been bought and moved to different locations–a rather disconcerting thought.

One of the tan and brown buildings where I taught in Camp Crook from 1980–1985 has been replaced with a new grey building. Which needed to be done, But if they chose to replace only one building, couldn’t they have chosen the one I taught in for the least number of years?

Also, my Grace Community Church Director of Discipleship and Assimilation digs–back in the days when the church rented downtown office space in the basement of the Livery–is now the kitchen of The Good News Room Coffee Shop. The owners have done a bang-up job with the space and decor, but it’s strange to order a cup of coffee and think, “Hmmm, right there where the sink is? That’s where my desk used to be.

All these changes take some getting used to, but I’m adjusting. Except for one thing. Considering the track record of my former workplaces and the fact that these days I work from home, do you think it would be wise for us to up our homeowner’s insurance?

Passing on the Magic

Posted on March 11, 2013 by jphilo

The man of steel and I are on a roll. Not only are we making progress on the sexiest remodeling project ever, but we also finished recovering the table and chair set last used eons ago during my childhood. Never mind how many eons ago that might be.

The important thing is that the original cracked and moldy red vinyl (circa 1957) has finally been replaced. The table top and chairs are all spiffed up and looking good thanks to:

My mom’s refusal to let the sibs and me “play rough” with table and chairs or take them outside, which explains why the original white paint is in excellent shape.
Mom’s decision in the 1980s to replace the vinyl on the table top and seats, but quitting halfway through the job. (She recovered the table top, but shoved the original chair covers and the remaining vinyl in a plastic bag.) So the set never was banged or dinged by her five grandchildren.
The birth of our grandson, which prompted my decision to haul the set out of our attic, where they’d been mouldering since Mom gave up housekeeping in 2009.
The man of steel, who helped with the project, doing all the stuff that made Mom abandon the project. (As I would have done had the man of steel not been around. Fitting the vinyl around those itty bitty corners and stapling them in place was a two person job!)

The table and chairs set look so good, they’re already in use as an end table in our living room and easily accessible to the pint-sized crowd. In fact, a two-year-old visitor to our house took them on a test drive. He discovered that the same piece of apple pie his mommy tried to feed him as he sat on her lap is magically tastier when feeding oneself seated at a kid-sized table.

This child-sized table is magic, a discovery I made eons ago as a child–still no need to disclose how many eons ago that might be–a discovery that skipped my children’s generation, and one we want our little grandson make during visits to grandma and grandpa’s house.

Because childhood should be full of magic, and grandparents are tasked with making sure it happens. Which means it’s time for me to stop blogging and start searching for fairy dust. It’s in the attic somewhere…

Tom Balm: An Extraordinary Man

Posted on January 25, 2013 by jphilo

Tom Balm was an extraordinary man.
He laughed more than a minister should, at least by 1967 standards,
when he came to our small town Iowa church.

He spent too much time visiting the poor and needy,
too many hours sitting with those too infirm to come to church on Sunday morning,
too many Sunday school classes explaining propitiation to uninterested middle schoolers.

Several times a week, his voice mingled with my father’s
and floated down the hall to meet my brother, sister, and I
when we got home from school.

We walked into Dad’s room where he lay in bed,
Tom on a chair beside him,
both of them chortling and chuckling
until tears ran down their cheeks,
until the loneliness left my father’s eyes,
until Tom said good-bye and took the laughter with him.

I close my eyes and see Tom sitting by our Sunday school room window,
riding herd on a roomful of hormonal middle schoolers,
spreading his arms to illustrate Christ’s crucifixion,
earnestly explaining how the Son
bore the wrath of the Father
for the sins of the world.

Did he use the word propitiation?
I don’t know.
But decades later, when a pastor used the word in a sermon,
I pictured the window and the Sunday school room of my childhood
and Tom with his arms spread wide.

Finally, I understood
the extraordinary love of the God
Tom wanted to share with a group of middle schoolers,

Finally, I understood
the extraordinary nature of a man
touched by the love of God he wanted us to know.

A man with a heart full of laughter.
A man who made a difference in the lives
of a father who could not leave his bed,
and the three children who loved him.

In memory of Reverend Tom Balm, August 14, 1932–November 29, 2012

Our Memory Tree

Posted on December 10, 2012 by jphilo

Hiram and I had a hard time getting excited about decorating the Christmas tree. Maybe it’s because we don’t have kids at home to turn the chore into a magical event. But this year, if we hadn’t been hosting our extended family’s holiday gathering, we might not have put it up.

Call us Scrooge and Scroogette.

We had to divide and conquer to get the job done. I unpacked and placed other decorations in their traditional spots around the house while Hiram put up the tree and strung the lights and garland. Once he was done, I hung the ornaments.

Call me a perfectionist.

I hung the straw angel, given to us by my closest college friend on our first married Christmas, and the calico ornaments I made that year for our Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Then came the satin ball from our first grown up workplace, the now defunct Sky Ranch for Boys. Next came treasures our kids made when they were young: paper cup bells, construction paper wreaths, wooden frames around kindergarten pictures of Allen and Anne.

Call me sentimental.

After that were ornaments from former students, souvenirs from our visit to Alaska when the kids were 12 and 6, the funky retro Old Navy ornaments Anne and I found on clearance when she was in high school, and gifts from co-workers at Bryant School, the elementary building that was torn down a few years ago.

Call me blessed and thankful.

Finally, I opened the old shoebox and unwrapped the antique ornaments Mom divided amongst the sibs and me when she gave up housekeeping. Fragile glass balls she and Dad bought in the early 1950s. Even more fragile baubles she inherited from Dad’s parents about the same time. Trinkets I placed high on this year’s tree to keep them safe. Treasures that brought to mind the stories Mom told about their owner, the grandmother who died before I was born, as we decorated the Christmas tree each year of my childhood. Gifts that led to a change in my attitude and my name for Christmas trees.

I call them memory trees.

Hypothetically Speaking

Posted on October 19, 2012 by jphilo

Hey, fellow baby boomers, do you remember how old you felt when you turned 30? How about 40? Remember chuckling at the jokes about wearing Depends? About eating bran muffins and drinking prune juice? Well, all that jocularity fades away when Facebook smacks you in the face with cold hard truth by announcing that one of your friends, a former fourth grade student, is celebrating her fortieth birthday.

The above scenario is completely hypothetical, of course. So, hypothetically speaking, how would you respond to the news? How would you reconcile the fact that one of the first students you taught was turning 40?

A. Would you do the Jack Benny thing and refuse to admit you were getting older?
B. Would you call a plastic surgeon?
C. Would you give thanks for the years going by swiftly and sweetly?
D. Would you be grateful for good health that makes you feel younger than are?
E. Or would you spin yourself as a child prodigy who started teaching at a young age?

Hypothetically speaking, C and D seem like excellent answers. But E has the ring of hypothetical truth, don’t you think?

image courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

Won’t Let the Parade Pass Me By

Posted on May 14, 2012 by jphilo

NPR ran a story about an intriguing concept this morning. The host interviewed Taylor Jones, a 22-year-old who created the website www.dearphotograph.com. Here’s what Jones, in an article at www.npr.org says about how the website came about:

He came up with the idea last year while sitting at his parents’ kitchen table. While flipping though a family photo album, he stumbled across a picture of his younger brother, Landon. “It was his third birthday,” Jones says. “He had a Winnie the Pooh cake, and I was sitting in the same spot my mom was when she took the original photo.” Landon was also sitting in his same birthday seat. So, Jones held up the old picture — taking care to line up kitchen cupboards just so — and snapped a photo. He posted it on his blog, and the rest, he says, is history.

People can go to the website and submit their own photographs, all of which must begin with the words Dear Photograph.

Like I said, an intriguing concept. So intriguing, I started thinking about what picture I would like to rephotograph in the same setting as it was originally taken.

One from our South Dakota days? Too far away.
A wedding shot? Too unoriginal.
A Kodak Instamatic shot of the Badlands from the famous camping trip with my uncle and aunt? Not sure where that one is.
Something from my teaching days? No, they tore the school down.

Undecided, I opened iPhoto, and there was the scan of a newspaper clipping we found when cleaning out Mom’s house 3 years ago. The clipping records one of my earliest clear memories – the day my aunt took her two daughters, my brother, and me (I’m the one closest to the camera) to watch a parade in our home town. I don’t remember the parade as much as the newspaper photographer who shot the picture. I do remember how safe I felt with my aunt, how much help she said I was, what a big girl I’d become. Heady stuff for a middle child whose major talent at the time was tripping over her own feet.

The caption says 8,000 spectators watched the American Legion Parade that day in 1961. It also lists our names, ages, and the address of the corner where Aunt Donna found a quiet, shady spot (Central Avenue and Fourth Street SE) so we could watch the National Guard trucks rumble past.

Mom and I are going to visit Aunt Donna in a couple weeks. Maybe I’ll take the original clipping along, find that street corner, line up the clipping with the present day location, snap a picture, and submit it to www.dearphotograph.com. I know what to write beneath my submission.

Dear Photograph,

Fifty years has taught me it’s more fun to join the parade of life than to sit and watch it go by.

Jolene

The Fairy Ring

Posted on April 9, 2012 by jphilo

Lilacs 300x200 The Fairy Ring

The lilacs are blooming,
Blossoms purple against deep green leaves.
Their scent rises in greeting this morning
As I walk down the lane.

I welcome these old friends,
Who visit briefly each spring,
Then wave good-bye in the wind,
With never a backward glance at the branches that bore them.

My daughter loved their circle of branches,
A fairy ring just big enough
For one small girl and her dolls
To hold a tea party on summer afternoons.

I look for my sweet, shy daughter
And the circle of branches
In the lilacs,
But both are gone.

The fairy ring is overgrown,
Filled with tender, new lilac shoots.
My daughter is grown,
Filled with tender love for her new husband.

Still, the lilacs blossoms
Return each spring.
My daughter and her husband
Return when they can.

When they turn into our lane,
The lonely branches wave
To greet the shy, sweet girl
Who once nestled in the safety
Of a fairy ring.

Where Were You When John Glenn Orbited the Earth?

Posted on February 17, 2012 by jphilo

g6 300x226 Where Were You When John Glenn Orbited the Earth?

February 20, 2012 – this coming Monday – is President’s Day. It is also the 50th anniversary of John Glenn’s space orbit of earth. For those of us who were alive on that momentous occasion the question is this: Where were you when John Glenn orbited the globe? Do you need a minute to think about it? Well, while you do, I’ll report on my February 20, 1962 whereabouts.

I was in kindergarten. I looked kinda like the girl on the left in this picture.
Except wearing winter school clothes, not a summer play outfit.

And I wasn’t standing outside with my great uncle Phil and my sister. I was sitting cross-legged (or as our teachers said back then “Indian style”) on the gym floor at Franklin School.

But I wasn’t the only one sitting cross-legged on the floor while my feet fell asleep. About 60 other kindergartners and two frazzled teachers (though they sat in folding chairs when they weren’t scolding kids who couldn’t keep their hands and feet to themselves) were sitting with me. We kindergartners stared at an itty, bitty TV on the stage at one end of the gym and tried really hard to keep our hands and feet to ourselves and use inside voices. But, we were pretty pumped about watching TV at school, especially after one of the kids said the teachers were gonna let us watch cartoons. Which I found hard to believe because my mom was a teacher, and she never allowed us to watch cartoons at home.

Still, we were hopeful.

Until one of the frazzled teachers made an announcement. “Boys and girls,” she said, “today the astronaut John Glenn is orbiting the earth.” Then, she used a globe and an orange to demonstrate the word orbit. Once that was done, she continued, “Now, we will watch the historic event.” At which point she turned on the television and we all strained to see the orange in space.

Except there wasn’t one.

All we could see was a fuzzy gray and a grayish-white blob moving across the screen. At least we could sort of see the blob. If the teacher pointed at it with her finger. It was pretty boring. So we all started not keeping our hands and fingers to ourselves and not using inside voices until the teachers gave up and turned off the TV. No doubt, they thought their attempt at imprinting a moment of history in the minds of their students was a bust.

But it wasn’t.

My memories of kindergarten are few. Some vague vignettes of trying to lie still during nap time and being a failure at coloring between the lines. Except for February 20, 1962 when John Glenn orbited the earth. That day, I remember clearly.

I remember watching our teacher point his spaceship’s progress through space.
I can still feel my feet falling asleep.
I can picture the wonder on my teacher’s face.
I can hear the excitement in the television announcer’s voice.

Thanks to 2 frazzled teachers, I remember much about the day John Glenn orbited earth fifty years ago on February 20, 1962. How about you? What do you remember? Leave a comment to share your memory of that day.

Not Just Old. But Ancient.

Posted on January 27, 2012 by jphilo

gs 100th mark2 Not Just Old. But Ancient.

Yesterday morning, my first thought was not, “Today, I’m gonna feel old.” But thanks to the Girl Scouts – yes, those cute little cookie peddlers who sell sugar highs in a box – for the first time ever, I am feeling a wee bit ancient.

Not just old. Ancient.

The realization was gradual, increasing the longer I listened to Talk of Iowa on the radio. The topic was the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts, and the host interviewed some Girl Scout leaders and a couple honest-to-goodness present day Girl Scouts. The girls were about the same age I was during my short career as cookie salesgirl and sash wearer.

And they made me feel not just old. But ancient.

It wasn’t their fault. But, while they talked, I thought about how 1912 was a century ago for the little girls. Just like 1865 was a hundred years ago when I attended Girl Scout meetings after school in 1965. So if and when they watch a show like Downton Abbey, the events portrayed there are as long ago and far away to them as the events chronicled in Gone With the Wind were to me.

And that’s when I started feeling not just old. But ancient.

Not because the Civil War seemed like a long time ago when I was a Girl Scout. And not because 1912 is a long time ago to the girls in the radio interview. And not because 1912 didn’t seem like such a long time ago in my GS days. But because the Civil War probably didn’t seem like such a long time ago to fifty-five-year-old adults in my GS days, but I thought those people were old.

But they didn’t seem just old. They seemed ancient.

Which is how today’s Girl Scouts view everybody old enough to tuck an AARP membership card next to the packet of Metamucil in their wallets, old enough to wear sensible shoes, sport age spots, and wear pants with elastic waistbands.

They view us as not just old. But ancient.

Oh my, the depression is coming on thick and fast. I think there’s only one way to fight this thing. I’m gonna find a Girl Scout, buy a box of Thin Mints, and snarf down the whole box. After all, my mom says old people like me have earned the right to eat whatever they want. And she ought to know.

‘Cause she’s not just old. She’s ancient.

Down the Gravel Road www.jolenephilo.com

Category Archives: Reflections on the Past