chairs are fun

Recently I visited my cousin while he was house sitting while my Uncle (his Dad) was out of state. We shared lots of stories about growing up.

I told him about a little red chair I remembered. At our Grandma "Bubbles" house (down the street from my Uncle's house) I used to sit in a little chair-- as a small girl wearing my fancy cute dresses and crinoline slips and patent leather shoes and curled blonde hair.
( It is now naturally curly strangely enough. Maybe an effect of all those torturous years of sleeping in sponge curlers or rolled socks!).

Grandma had a room at the front of the house with lots of windows and, I think, shelves under the windows. Not sure about the configuration of the shelves, but I know that was where she kept her scrap book albums.

Yep and double yep!==Grandma was a woman before her time with the scrapbooking. She would save all the hand written letters I wrote to her- terrible grade school misspellings and all- and every drawn and colored art creation and coloring book page signed and dedicated especially to her that I had ever tossed her way! No need to wonder... I come from a long line of savers!
I remember feeling really proud as I looked at the way she had immortalized my efforts at being a good granddaughter. Incidentally, I have that scrapbook stuff from Grandma's house even now. The stuff I would look at while siting in the little chair at every visit.

Here's where the story gets even better==
I told this story to my cousin and he listened to my ramblings (much like my blog ramblings!). He finally had the chance to get a word in edgewise and seized the opportunity.

"That was probably my Dad's little red chair from when he was a little boy. He told me he used to sit in it to listen to the radio!!
[or listen to radio as it was back then, just as we now say watch TV as opposed to saying watching the TV]
He still has it. It is here in the house. "

I was shocked. Then he said, before I started my rantings again, "Would you like to see it?"

Well, would I like to breath some air is just about the same question in my opinion!!!!!!
I was sooooo excited as he went to the closet and pulled it out. I had to take a picture of it. Had to!!
I only wish there were a photo somewhere of Uncle J. as a little boy sitting in this little red chair listening to radio!!!!!!

Then he showed me some boxes of OLD books that have been in the family for 100 years stacked in another of my Uncle's closets but we did not open any of them. It was like looking into King Tut's tomb in my opinion!!! What treasure undiscovered!!! That's another story for another time...

Speaking of chairs...


Some time ago I bought this cute child size vintage chair (or chairs, depending on how you approach it all) in my travels, and now I am trying to decide what to do. I collect old Raggedy Ann dolls and I can picture them sitting in this.
What do you think?
Keep? Sell? Oh the drama of life! Anyone with any thoughts??
Just one more funny thing to share while on the subject of chairs. I was on the way to taking E. to the Rescue Horse Barn where she volunteers and we passed a huge Edison electrical repair truck. Tucked inside and up on top were two stacked wicker chairs (where they had absolutely NO business being!!!!) as if the guys had found them along the road in some one's trash and couldn't leave the opportunity behind. I wonder what their boss would say about this mode of transport? And hey! I thought I was the only one silly enough to drag home chairs!!

Flash Back- plastic dishes

Do you remember growing up with plastic dishes? Melamine, Melmac, Boonton, Royalon, Texasware. These are some of the names they are known by. I grew up with some brown dishes like these. I also was raised with a set of white dishes with a cluster of apple and grapes at the one side. At least that is the way I recall them. I looked at them daily and probably blocked out the true image. I have tried and tried to find an image of them on _oogle or anywhere on the net with no luck. Did I dream them? Does anyone out there remember these fruit plastic dishes? My most vivid memory of these plates is when we would have grilled cheese sandwiches and canned chicken noodle soup on a weekend while watching "Wide World of Sports" with Jim McKay. Remember the skier tumbling to a broken body end while they said...."and the agony of defeat"? I hated that part.
Anyway, back to the food...the grilled cheese sandwiches were good and cheesy enough but I had a brother that always got to the soup before me (we served right out of the pan with this usual meal- no fancy shmancy ironstone soup tureen[although I love soup tureens and am strangely drawn to them as an adult probably from this child abuse example of soup out of a PAN!!!!])



Ok, Ok. Back to the food... he always took the ladle to the pan and drained out the broth for his servings so when I got to my turn all that was left of the hearty (haha) canned chicken noodle soup was watered down broth and a noodle or two, and maybe if I was really lucky, one dice of chicken!! Oh the agony of defeat!!!!!!!

I also grew up with these dishes -they were cups and mugs and bowls and pedestal dessert cups. All colors. Some had raffia woven inside and others were more like tightly woven burlap. Neutrals and bright colors.

So here's my reminiscence of the burlap/raffia cups, mugs and bowls. This time it doesn't involve my meany brother.

We live in the suburbs and when we were young, the bug spray fogging truck would come down the street very frequently going very, very slowly spraying the dense fog --of probably some cancer causing agent that has since been banned-- while we would sometimes be eating our ice cream in one of those bowls in front of the TV watching maybe- Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom"... when Mom would call out her usual refrain, "Cover your ice cream and close the windows!!!"
Ah, the days of our youth.
Wouldn't you know it, now the bug fogging truck goes down the street very infrequently going about 80 mph spraying something that doesn't even make the bird sized mosquitoes cough!

Here's a funny story; I asked my daughter if she wanted me to pack these away for her when she is older. She seemed to be admiring these as I was taking the photos before sending them off to the Goodwill. She looked at me like I was nuts! "How would I know if I would like to have these when I grow up? I'm 12!!!!"

And then she said..." What would I do with them anyway?"

My reply, "Eat off them!"

She sighed like I was a crazy mother and off she went out the door to be a happy go lucky 12 year old.

Have you ever heard the saying=

My Grandma had them, My Mom got rid of them, I just bought some.

That is not true of most things in my life -my Grandmas and Mom were all savers...but those white plastic dishes with the cluster of apple and grapes at the one side are an exception. Oh yeah, and those other dishes and cups and bowls too!!

**SIGH*