Random Childhood Memories...

This post was originally started on my mom's birthday in the early spring. I'd been remembering an odd assortment of things from my childhood.  Summer images. The way a certain yard looked with tall, bushy shrubs, long un-mowed grass that would swish as you walked through it, cellar doors on the side of a white cottage leading to a dark unknown below. A little ditch that ran alongside the yard, overflowing on irrigation day, creating a fun place to cool off. A thin wire fence, the kind that curved gracefully at the top like little hills running along one after the other. Smells of hot summer air, grass, fading flowers. Sounds of push mowers and from a home somewhere in the distance, a power mower. Hollyhocks standing tall, a huge bumblebee slowly making it's way from flower to flower. Images, scents, and feelings imprinted into my memories. Bits of summers past. Sweetness. Serenity. Summertime.


© 8Jul2015 ajj

Fairies and Imaginings...

The woods are full of fairies;

The sea is full of fish;

The trees are full of golden leaves;

Let's make an autumn wish.

~ Anonymous

Today, I'm thankful for imagination. From my earliest memories, my imagination protected me from some of the harsh realities of my life. It also enabled me to visit exotic locations and have amazing adventures! 

My imagination was, and still is, fueled by books, music, television, and movies. As a young child, books played the largest role. Nancy Drew, Mary Poppins, Lassie, Grimm's Fairy Tales, and a little book published in 1919 called History Stories for Primary Grades. That little history book was where I first read about Joan of Arc, who became one of my heroes. Grimm's Fairy Tales fueled the fantasy side of my daydreams. There were princesses, queens, fairies, and there were children in terrible danger from evil witches or a stepmother.  They managed to somehow overcome and survive the abuse. Imagination helped make me a survivor, and fueled my own creativity.  Spend some time today with your imagination, and delight in the places it can take you!

© 06NOV2014 ajj

A Surprise in the Mail...

To begin, I want to wish each of you a Happy Easter!  It looks like a beautiful day here in Idaho.  My plans are simple, to spend the day with my husband and sons. 

I received the most beautiful package in the mail last week!  I won the giveaway from Michelle Palmer, and here is what I saw when I opened the package...

 This is what was inside...

Michelle does such beautiful sketches and painting.  You can see more of her work in her Etsy Shop,
Michelle Palmer Art.  She drew the acorns, placing them randomly in the squares of this vintage piece of linen.  She left the buttons separate, so I can place them where I wish or leave them off altogether.  I love this!  The acorns take me back to my childhood, and the giant oak tree in our yard.  I spent hours in the shade of that oak, reading my Nancy Drew mysteries, looking for 4-leaf clovers, making dandelion chains, and collecting acorns.  Precious memories of simple times.  I will treasure this!

Today's Sunday Scribblings Prompt is Treat.  The word is implied, rather than being inserted in this post.  The treat was winning the Michelle Palmer piece!  Continuing with my April poetry theme, I wrote the following:

In the shade of ancient oak,

branches stretched upwards and out,

solitude is not lonely.

In the wonder of cool shelter,

a bumpy floor of grass

and acorns so abundant. 

I choose a spot and stretch out, 

favorite book in hand,
under comfort of green arms.

© 08APR2012 ajjahner

Those of you who are readers, will recognize the treat in this piece.  There's nothing quite like finding a place you love to enjoy a great book.

Day 27 - Beginnings, The Help

I just spent the past two and a half hours watching The Help.  It's been a long while since a movie touched me in quite that way.  Movies have often dealt with the race issues in our history, but only a few stood out to me.  The 1974 film, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman was one of those.  Cicely Tyson was magnificent.  It was both heartbreaking and inspiring.  In 1985, The Color Purple broke my heart again.  The Help is another one of those.  It was a joy to see Cicely Tyson again, as Constantine, and Viola Davis was amazing as Aibileen.  It was a different kind of story.  One where you saw good and bad on both sides, but it felt like goodness won.  No, it didn't tie it up in a pretty package as if everything ended ok, but it left you with a feeling of hope.

My early childhood years were during the turbulent 1960's.  Racism was covered on the evening news.  It shocked me to see the overt hostility on peoples faces.  Brutality of any kind had always frightened me, and I couldn't understand how people could resort to cruelty and violence.

I used to hear people say things like, "I just don't see color."  I do see color.  I want to see it.  I want to see all our differences and glory in them.  I want to be seen for who I am.  When we look at the world around us, much of the greatest beauty is in the differences of texture and color.  Craggy mountains, deep valleys, smooth blue waters, sky, clouds, sun, and rain.  It's the kaleidoscope of differences that shock and thrill us with their wonder.  Seeing people is like that too.  Some are comforting, some bring smiles, some try our patience and stretch our boundaries, others leave us breathless with their beauty.  Our common bond is the most important thing.  We are human, we have heart and soul and spirit.  I wish it was enough to stop the hatred and injustice which still exists in our world.  It isn't yet, but I still have hope.

© 27JAN12 ajj

28JAN12 - NEW NOTE...  From a thread on FB, I discovered a lot of people who felt the movie minimized the race issue.  Some were even highly offended by it and felt it continued to perpetuate racism.  I didn't get that from it.  I thought it was a blend of drama and humor, that tried to look at both sides.  My hope is always that our world continues to grow toward more understanding and peace.  Please leave comments, negative or positive.  I always have room to learn from others.  Wishing you peace!

Day 10 - Beginnings - Thoughts on Food

Only thing I disliked more was the chicken spread!

I thought I'd take a look at the beginnings of my relationship with food.  My earliest memories consist of Campbells Soup, Wonder Bread, Hot Dogs, Rice a Roni (always served with Mom & I singing "Rice a Roni, the San Francisco treat, Rice a Roni, The flavor can't be beat"), and the occasional pepperoni pizza from the restaurant Mom worked at.  Grandma and Grandpa had some interesting items to add to my food memories, Spam, Hominy, Deviled Ham and Chicken Spreads, Canned Sardines, and Chung King Chicken Chow Mein.
 
Loved: Wonder Bread, Soup, Hominy, Hot Dogs, Rice a Roni, Pizza, & Sardines

Hated: Spam, Deviled Ham, Deviled Chicken, & Chung King Chow Mein

Couldn't find a photo of the whole sardines

Don't get me wrong, Mom and Grandma both made some wonderful meals.  Grandma was an especially good cook, but times were lean and sometimes the budget couldn't afford a nice roast or chicken.  It was called making the best of the situation. Most of these foods were inexpensive, though I don't know about the Sardines.  Grandpa would buy them occasionally and share with me.  They were the tiny, whole ones, packed in oil.  They came in those cans with the metal key!  Do you remember those?  I loved it when I got to be the one to pull off the key, place it in the slot, and turn, turn, turn until the lid pealed open!  Many things came in those "key" cans.  Once in a while, we even got a big ham in a can.

Mixed memories of Spam... not all bad.

I remember a picnic where mom served our hotdogs on white Wonder Bread, ketchup oozing through the soft bread.  I was about 5, and I thought it was delicious and finger lickin' messy-good!  Grandma would take hotdogs, slice down the middle but still connected, dip in her homemade pancake batter, and pan fry.  I loved those!  She also did the same with the hated Spam, and it became acceptable dinner fare for me.

We ate as the budget dictated.  Most of our foods were fresh, and you didn't toss a potato because it had grown "eyes" or had a bad spot.  You cut away the bad, and tossed the rest into the stew pot.  Bones from the ham, chicken or roast were simmered and made into soup stock.  Everything that could be used was used.  I feel a little shame that I've allowed myself to be so finicky and wasteful at times.  Another Resolution... Be Less Wasteful!

I hope this brings back some of your early food memories.



 © 10JAN12 ajj

Day 5 of Beginnings - My New Obsession

I recently got hooked on PINTEREST.  It began with seeing the little button on some fellow blogger's sidebar.  Before long a couple of my FB friends were talking about it, so I wandered over to check it out.  I love it!  It's like a combination of collecting, list making, bulletin boards, or saving pages from favorite magazines,  all combined in one place. 

I can visualize things I dream about like travel, art, and photography.  There are ideas on home decor, cooking, crafts, fashion, and so much more.  I've found images of things I remember from my childhood.  There are photos of my current style of decorating and photos of my dream style.  It's had the effect of waking up parts of my personality and history that I'd forgotten about. 

Today I found an image of vintage Bingo cards.  It took me right back to my mom's tiny kitchen when I was about 6 years old.  I was seated at the table with a Bingo card and some buttons.  The numbers were being called out over the radio.  The sun was streaming in through the small window over the sink.  Beside the sink, on the wall, was a little Dutch girl memo pad that I'd made at school.  Her apron was the note pad and above it was a paper tube with a short pencil in it.  Those little pencils that used to come with board games.  My momma loved that memo pad.  My new hobby took me on a surprise visit back to my childhood.  I can't wait to see where it will take me tomorrow.


© 05JAN12 ajj

Poetry and Simple Joys

 

The poem I chose today, Where the Sidewalk Ends, takes me back to childhood; the simplicity of it.  I can vividly remember the sidewalk I followed, on my way to first grade.  There were places where the smooth continuity of the pavement was disrupted by the crumbling of age; or the intrusion of some massive tree root that had pushed it's way under the squares of cement.  This caused a sudden rise, and tall grass grew in the resulting cracks.  I was fascinated by the power nature had in undoing what man had laid down.

Many of my favorite places to play were where sidewalks ended.  I loved walking the dirt road that stretched behind our house.  There were fields on each side.  In the spring, I could see the faint green shoots coming up through the dirt.  Tall grass and weeds grew along the ditch-bank.  Occasionally, a pheasant would shoot from it's cover, colors vibrant against the blue sky.  There were sounds of civilization in the distance; the drone of a mower or a tractor, the hum of a car or two speeding by; a neighboring farmer's dog barking; and occasionally, my Grandma's voice lifted in a song or a yodel.

Sitting in the long grasses at the end of the road, I let my imagination run.  I traveled far away lands and had amazing adventures.  There were lions and elephants, gypsies and pirates.  As I look out the window just behind this desk, I see a well established neighborhood.  There are rules and regulations that must be followed to live here.  The sidewalks are strictly maintained.  No long grasses or weeds are allowed.  Everything must be precisely manicured.  I do understand the need for this, but once in a while I long for those wild places.  The places where imagination ran free, where lions and gypsies walked among us. 

   

Where the Sidewalk Ends 

by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,

And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.


 

I hope you enjoyed traveling back in time with me.  Poetry month has caused me to search my mind for poems that meant something to me.  I love this poem. I love thinking about the simple joys of childhood.  

Now before I forget, please feel free to take the image and use it.  It came to me from Dover Publications as a royalty free image.  Click on the it to enlarge, then right click, and save to your computer.

Wishing you a gorgeous springtime afternoon!

Childhood

As children, we viewed life differently than seen through our eyes as adults.  In that child world, imagination plays an important role.  We pretend to hear things which are impossible to hear; we feign understanding of  the language of nature, the voices of flowers.  We are caught up in a web of unreality... or are we?

Forgotten Language

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?

Shel Silverstein


A big "Thank You" to Dawn of The Feathered Nest for the use of this image! Visit her beautiful blog for more images and some great decorating ideas among other things!