Barbie Dolls

       

When we were young, Mattel created and sold the first Barbie Dolls. This rather shapely doll had a cute little ponytail, heavy eye makeup and a limited wardrobe. Unlike the Barbie today, the original one was not a business woman, nurse or astronaut…she was just a doll for dressing up.

When we got our first Barbies, we played incessantly. The best part was that my Grandma Golla actually got an additional doll and tailored a wardrobe around her. For an additional gift, Mary Beth and I each received a suitcase (probably about 18 x 12 and 6 inches deep) filled with hand made Barbie clothes. Grandma took all her leftover fabric and made us suits and dresses and pants and jackets. She made sure we each had one of everything. The clothes were not the machine made clothes of the store that anyone could get, but hand stitched lovingly and each unique because it was made by Grandma. Having her own mannequin made sure the clothes not only fit but could easily be put on and taken off. We added shoes and accessories.

We had the best dressed Barbies in the world.   I am sure that we didn’t appreciate all the special items at the time. We were probably envious of our friends “new” clothes that were like everyone else’s, but they in turn couldn’t believe all the clothes we had.

Added Barbie thoughts…

Pony Tail – 3-wigs - Bouffant. Feet that were designed to wear heels only. Earrings that just poked through a hole in the side of the head – a pretty, short stick pin did the same thing and gave a variety of colors as well. Ken had hair like short felt and there were no friends, sisters or other relations. First car was a pink convertible.

Enough about Barbie...next blog starts a new era. 

My Pearl Necklace

My father could not figure out how to handle his daughters' tears. I have to give him credit. He was the youngest of 4 children, one older sister and 2 brothers, so never saw female tears or was asked to understand them.

With mom working second or third shift, Daddy took care of us girls a lot. So when we would cry he had to figure out how to handle it. His solution? He would go to his bedroom and get a large bandana/handkerchief and dry our tears with it. Then he would tell us that he would hold onto it and the tears would turn into pearls and some day we would get pearl necklaces.

So we spent years crying into his handkerchief and being comforted.

When my Aunt Margaret died, I received her pearl necklace. It was beautiful and you would have thought it would have made me very happy. I waited till my cousin's daughter, Becky, was getting married and gave it to her.
And what of  the pearl necklace my father had promised me?  He did leave me pearls that I will never get to wear. They are for sharing.

Those pearls are ideas and stories and memories. And I will have them forever. 

Charlie Brown Trees

We were not affluent by any means and usually got our Christmas tree after the lots were pretty much picked over. y aunt Margaret always got a long needle, huge tree that I know was incredibly expensive, but she had to have a perfect tree. 

My mom usually picked a short needled tree with at least one spot that was best left facing the wall. My parents believed the tree was about the decorating, not the foliage.

We all decorated together. The lights were glass, screwed into a long cord. The ornaments were also glass, and antiques. They were passed from my grandmother to my mom and I think one of my sisters has them now. There was no garland. It was tinsel, delicately placed strand by strand on each branch…don’t even think about grabbing a handful or putting too many together.

There were a few exceptions – my younger sisters and brother got to put their tinsel on the back of the tree and they were not restricted. They decorated the bad side of the tree so a clump of tinsel beautifully masked the flaws.

When Christmas was over, the ornaments were put back in the boxes. Those without individual boxes were wrapped in soft paper or tissues and placed in a different box. The lights were removed and wound up and packed away. The tinsel…well the tinsel was taken off the tree and spread out on tissue paper to be covered and rolled away to be used again.

Sure – the words cheap and bald and ugly and shoddy could have been incorporated into my memory, but they are overshadowed by exciting, funny and wonderful. Our less than perfect trees were family projects, completed in love and cherished in memories.

Be the best YOU

My parents were very fair. They made sure all their children received the same benefits and the same advantages.

There was pressure to be the best we could be, but we were not steered based on their accomplishments or missed dreams, but on who we were as individuals.

In the first case, on Christmas, we all received the same amount and value of gifts. If Mary wanted a bicycle for 100 dollars and I wanted a pair of gloves for 20, I received enough additional gifts to equal what was being spent on Mary. In turn, she received a number of small gifts so we each had the same number of packages under the tree.

On Easter, my mother would prepare baskets for us with the same number or jelly beans or marshmallow eggs. This changed later, but that is for future blogs.

For achievements, Mary was a star, I was a support player. So when Mary starred in a play or show or class presentation, Mom would be there cheering her on. And when I was playing in the support choir, she was there too. I never realized that my part was less important because Mom encouraged me to do the best I could even if I was just handing out programs.

I tried to open my son’s focus to what he was good at without having him feel he had to be something he wasn’t just to please me. Mom and Dad did that for us and I hope I passed it on.

Thunderstorms

I love the smell in the air when a thunderstorm is moving in. It’s a damp smell. The air feels heavier but not unbearable.

I remember many times watching clouds roll in and embracing the change in the air; the smell, the temperature, the look of the sky.

Then once the storm started, a taste like none other. It was pure water. There was no flavor or fizz… just water running from heaven into our mouths.

I remember summer storms where the storm didn’t remove the heat, but soaked us in a hot, deluge of water. The rain cleaned the play off our bodies to prepare us for another game.

I remember thunder that shook the house and lightning that took the power. Sometimes it was so dark from the clouds that the lightning was the only flash that revealed what was going on. Sometimes we sat on the porch and watched the rain; sometimes we ran off and played in it.

The potholes were made for splashing and stomping. The grass would become greener – the flowers would become brighter – the trees would become stronger.

I know longer play in the rain or stomp in the potholes. I worry about the roof leaking or the basement flooding or how can we travel in the power of the storm.

I still love the smells before and after the rain. I still open a drape and watch the splashing of the drops in puddles. There is nothing like the rain.

Juliette Lowe

January 28, 2019

As a Girl Scout I sold cookies, went on field trips and did silly art projects. I learned how to work as part of a team and how to achieve personal goals and earn badges.

Every year all the troops in the school would appear on stage for the Juliette Lowe Pageant. Juliette Lowe was credited for starting the scouts in America and each troop would get an assigned state, theme or country and do a little show from that region.

One year that I specifically remember, we did Hawaii… appearing on stage in muumuus and leis and we did a modified hula. A person in church had the heritage of the islands on her side and taught us how to do a very lovely dance. As a group of 12 or 13 year old girls did their little dance, they imagined themselves on an island, with all the lovely moves of a Polynesian princess. In reality we were a bunch of gawky girls who were anything but graceful and sexy, but that is not why this show was memorable.

As we danced, my mother was in the back of the auditorium with my brother Kevin, a cute little boy of 2 or 3.

The parish priest stopped to talk to Mom and suddenly said, “Who’s kid is that?”

My mother looked up and she was shocked to see my brother, in bright red/black plaid overalls, going up the risers in front of the stage to visit his sister Margaret. I was equally surprised that Kevin was there, and one of the other mothers was off stage and graciously coaxed Kevin to the wings.

He was my buddy but joining the Girl Scout show was not best moment. But I remember it like it was yesterday.

Painting

January 27,2019

When we lived on 28^th street, the house was made of stucco and my father regularly painted it for his mother – the home owner. If you don’t know what stucco is, it is like cement but rough. If you look at a snowbank after the plows come through and you see all lumps of different sizes left on the banks, it is like magnified stucco.

In order to paint stucco, you not only have to brush but you have to tap the brush to paint the spaces between the lumps. It wasn’t odd for Daddy to come in splattered all over with paint from the incessant tap-tap-tapping of the brush on the material.

Mary and I always wanted to help, but that would have been a disaster waiting to happen. We did occasionally get to help, but ended up splashed with bits of paint. So to get our creative juices flowing and our desire to help satisfied, we were allowed to paint the sidewalk.

This entailed my Dad getting some old paint brushes and giving us a bucket of water. Then we painted the sidewalk squares with water, one square at a time, till all was covered. As it dried, we imagined that the cement was covered with a fresh, new coat of water/paint and looked so much better. But it was no brighter or nicer than after a rainstorm.

We didn’t care – we painted while dad painted and when done, the house and sidewalk were brand spanking new.