Such a Charles

In another lifetime, when I exhibited at art shows, there was a show at Lincoln Center. I applied for it on the proviso that Ann would accompany me, and Beth, if she could. I navigated some big cities in my time, and I mastered Long Island, but NYC was out of my league, alone. Without them, and Charles, I would know nothing about NYC except the GW and Throg’s Neck.

Booths ringed the perimeter of Lincoln Center, and were on the mall. These had to tear down every night, to accommodate patrons, so I chose a booth on the east side. To load in and out, I had to park the van on a road I think was called just Lincoln Center. We had a window of time to unload, then the van had to be moved. At that time I carried all the garments on wheeled garment racks, reducing the dolly loads to two or three.

But, at Lincoln Center, everything went down a long sidewalk, up several sets of shallow steps, and more long sidewalks to the booth. We took the booth structure first, and as I set it up, Ann and Beth began transporting the balance. I saw both garment racks coming down the walk, one propelled by Ann and Beth, and one by a tall man, expertly guiding his from the middle. It was Charles. He helped us load out, too. He would take no money for his work. He told us the best route back to the Hudson River parking lot, and to give panhandlers cigarettes, but no money.

Charles appeared at the show, with customers in tow. They shopped, but Charles was disappointed none of my shirts fit him. He was at least 6’6”, and his shoulders approached fifty inches. I knew I could custom make a shirt, with a flat fell seam up the back, using two lengths my forty inch wide fabric for the front and for the back, instead of two widths. It should have cost twice as much, but instead I gave him my “good friend” discount from the regular price.

At Lincoln Center

Thus repeated my time at the Lincoln Center show. I realized Charles was attracted to weavers as if weaving had been a profession in a previous life. He couldn’t collect enough of it, and that on a living as a bookseller, abiding in a NYC apartment. Between the shows, I often received little parcels from him. There were books, bits of fiber art, all sorts of weaving. Once a beautiful pine needle basket, from an indigenous weaver in Georgia came out of the box, and I had to chide Charles on his extravagance. How valuable did he consider a “good friend” shirt every year, with some towels for ballast.

When I retired the Lincoln show, Charles ordered fifteen towels, which he divvied out to friends, according to his erratic letters. Then came 9/11, and I lost track of him for a bit. Finally, my “don’t make me come find you” letter had a response, and in his very Charles way, he was completely consumed with volunteerism.

As happens, we did lose track over the next ten or so years. Last fall, though, Charles was out of towels. He sent a chatty letter to me, at the old house. It languished on the Hoosier; K forgot to give me the accumulating mail. When she did, I read six pages of Charles’ interesting handwriting, on sheets of handmade paper. I wonder what he doesn’t collect.

I answered him in January, with the crushing news. My towels are over, gone. If he had saved any for himself, he’d still be using them. (I might send him a twenty year old specimen from the towel drawer!) I recommended a good weaver to him, who makes towels for sale, using my favorite ring spun 8/2 cottons. I wonder where that weaver buys it. Stop it, Joanne. Too late now.

Yesterday, a package came from Charles. He is “downsizing.” Yea, and I have a bridge in Brooklyn. He has retired the bookstore, is writing his books and plays, and travelling all over the world. The same eclectic collection, tied up by two bits of ribbon, also saved from years ago, I’m sure, packed in the box. Such a Charles.

Charles does not want the other weaver’s towels, he says. So, I contacted the other weaver, and selected six towels to go to Charles, NYC via Peninsula. I do want to see them first, to be sure they are what I think they are.  I think I need to get the Shaker Towel pattern back from Praxis, and commission a few. Think of it! Paying for towels.

A book, Wisdom Weaver. Postcards from his Russo/Asian travels. A continuous strap, from an indigenous weaver in Brazil. Probably to hold a baby or a jug. Some blue scraps pieced neatly to a damask napkin. I recognize the initials as an old friend of his. She died one of the last times we corresponded. Charles was very distraught.

The big towel fish that got away! Love it.

A week off, and back again

We arrived in Wisconsin a week too early for Christmas.

Laura helped at the kennel,

 made cookies,

and made supper every day.

This is Sawyer, one of Pat and Ann's dogs.

Sawyer is a dropout from cadaver school.

Too easily distracted. 

No cookie dough will fall, but that's not what he thinks.

Waiting for Santa.

Pat is Santa; Laura has another hat.

This is Seamus. He has old, old bones. He's about 12.

He and a sibling ran away from home. Pat returned them.

Seamus was back on the doorstep every time Pat returned him,

until the original human said, "Guess he's yours."

And another of the rescues. 

I've lost track of the number of dogs in the house all week.

When we left, there was one less bed to sleep on, every night.

Sigh. A dog's life.

Reverie

This morning I set myself the mind boggling task of filling in the 2016 township calendar on the website. Before I started on the calendar, I put up a picture of the road super, retired after thirty three years. I found the perfect picture, don’t you think. 

Trustee and zoning meetings on the calendar are fairly straightforward, but when I get to brush and leaf pick-up, I boggle, my mind and my eyes wander. I looked up at a picture that has been on my wall for twenty years. Everything in this house is old, me not the least among the detritus.

I love that picture, Stalking the Wild Yarn. My friend Nina presented it to me one winter, the seasons I set up shop in her antique gallery and waited for the spring to arrive.  Below that, exhibitor buttons I accumulated over the years at the big fall show in Louisville, St. James Court Art Show.

I loved that show, and never did it alone. I always took Ann or Beth, or both, who did more than help set up, tear down and sell. Both of them could keep the map of Louisville in their head and knew how to get to the restaurant and the motel, even if we were lost.

Did you wonder about the ostrich head? The speech bubble says “They’re how much?” Linda came across that, an ad for a long forgotten product. She presented it to me shortly after we both exhibited at the Letchworth Park fall show. It’s actually a fall color weekend event; the exhibitors are an afterthought; the sort of show where artists stand outside their booths and declare to the sky “God strike me dead if I ever do this show again.”

I was behind my booth on a smoke break and walked back to the front past one of the millions examining the jacket from hell and saying to the world, “They’re how much!?” “They're obviously made of solid gold, you fool,” I said on my way by. From the other side of the sidewalk Linda’s husband Dick looked up from their booth, crossed, patted my back and said “Take a break, Joanne.” So I went and looked at leaves for fifteen minutes.

The postcard came from Laura, in the mail, more than ten years ago. The front door picture—Nina, again. She set herself the project of photographing every front door in Boston. They are famous in the community, and displayed at most events. That’s Angus, the best Cairn terrier who ever lived, looking out the front door. The only Boston door with a dog, Nina said.

You all know Toby, the spoiled cat. Good lord, how much stuff can I accumulate? Back to the cat and the yarn and suddenly I saw the dust. All of it. I dusted down the wall and went back to work.

Wisconsin drive-by

I came home Friday last, greeted my cat, went through the mail and turned the calendar page.  I am slammed by August; it will be one wild ride. Laura is in her band camp all week; Emily has marching band practice two nights, and we are visiting two colleges this week. Next week is equally crazy, including a day and a half trip with Linda for each of us to purchase weaving supplies. Then school starts—the upside of this craziness is the children will be out of school by the end of May.

Long ago I had a friend, an engineer, a Polish native. He and his wife emigrated via a trip over the Berlin Wall.  He loved the vastness of this country and delighted in showing the sights to visiting friends. He included the entire country in a week. The Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge and back to Ohio via Baton Rouge. “We saw them,” he said. I called it the Stan Dombrowsky school of driving: “Go like hell until you come up on the guy ahead of you, pass him, do it over again.”  

The wind blew lightly all week, and all the crops moved in the wind.

Hay harvesting.

So my drive-by account of my Wisconsin visit to Ann is we drove over half of Wisconsin to visit old friends I’ve come to know in the twenty years Ann has lived there. The scenery was beautiful, the harvest is starting to come in. We visited new restaurants for lunch, and one old haunt. 

This is Perc Place in Hartford.

It is women owned and operated.

It has grown too big for its britches and is moving to a new accommodation next week.

Not to worry; it's just two doors down on Main Street.

It reminds me of another favorite restaurant, Lynn's Paradise Cafe in Louisville, Kentucky.

All the fittings seem to come from you grandmother's house.

Lynn's, sadly, is no longer in business.

The food is nice--wraps, panini, hummus, cucumber cream cheese--all the millennial stuff.

The hall to the ladies and gents has not changed in all these years

Alice down the rabbit hole (?) on one side,

Ladies gowns and hats on the other.

And on the inside:

Yes, that's my cane.

I wanted a peek in the gent's, but Ann would not stand guard.

Sweetheart soap and other pleasant things

I took Emily and Laura to work with me this morning because no one would be home. Laura slipped into the front seat. As we were backing out of the garage, I sniffed a couple of times and finally said, “You smell nice.” This is not like “You look nice,” which would have elicited a smile. It embarrassed her and she looked away.

As I turned the car around and the nice smell wafted on the breezes from the open windows, it struck me. “You smell like Sweetheart soap.” I stopped the car to for a minute for a couple more inhales. Laura was so embarrassed, she looked away. All the way up our street I rhapsodized about Sweetheart soap at my great grandma’s house. She did not look at me all the way to work.

Look at that bar of soap. That’s exactly how my great grandma’s bathroom looked. The bathroom was huge, converted from a bedroom when indoor plumbing came along at the turn of the previous century. Big claw foot tub with a wire soap hanger over the edge. A porcelain sink big enough to bathe a baby. Nickle plated fixtures, the hot and cold handles with little ceramic labels inside captain wheel taps. The rubber sink stopper on a chain. And, the Sweetheart soap, there on the right, in another wire holder.

Grandma's Cox's sink was a huge oval. I couldn't find one, so think big on this.

From the time I could step on the stool and wash my own hands, I knew that soap was the smell of goodness. It smelled like Grandma Cox, and I could take it away on my hands. Not like that brown stuff, Camay, my mom had at home. I boarded with Grandma Cox the first year I was in college, so I have a long history with that soap. I have no idea what Laura uses in the shower, but I may track down a bar of Sweetheart soap for her for Christmas.

In other nice things, Laura, Emily and I are all leaving town next week. Emily is going to band camp, Laura is going to horse camp with Cousin Caroline, who is an old hand at horse camp and champing to show Laura what it’s all about. And, I’m taking my camera and going to Wisconsin. After an extremely intense and unhappy executive session at the township this week, the trustees wished me a good trip, and one trustee wistfully said, “I’ve always wanted one of those cheese head hats.” We all looked and he mumbled, “I just think they’re cool.”

He is the director of our library and runs a great children's program. He came to another very important board meeting this week in his best batman tee shirt. It was the children’s talent program day at the library. We just let all the VIP’s in the meeting conclude for themselves this trustee knows his township business, too. I’ll bring him the hat, and he will say, “Holy cheese head hat, Robin.”

Ode to Jerr-Dans

If you’re an ordinary motorist who needed a flat changed or a battery jumped, the call to AAA for help probably was answered by a fellow in a specially outfitted car, or a tow truck. If you’re an exhibitor at an art show and the van lets you down coming or going,  you tell the AAA operator to send a Jerr-Dan because your vehicle weighs eight or nine thousand pounds, is extended, and is going nowhere on the end of a hook.

Over the weekend Emily helped Linda at the Worthington Art Festival, a suburb north of Columbus, Ohio. On the way to the motel after setting up Linda realized her van was not shifting properly. She left it at the motel for the weekend, and she and Emily hitched to the show with fellow exhibitors. She drove in to the show on Sunday, they packed up Sunday night, and Linda called Triple A. She asked them to be there at seven; they arrived about ten.

The driver put her van on the Jerr-Dan and drove the two of them two hundred miles back to Columbiana. He put them down at Linda’s mechanic’s garage, they hitched another ride to her house at two a.m., and all ended well with a new transmission line.

It was Emily’s first Jerr-Dan adventure, and she asked me about some of my more memorable Jerr-Dan moments. In truth, I only came home on a Jerr-Dan once, but did have a ride on a Jerr-Dan to a garage that replaced my radiator on the way to a show.

I have seen exhibitors arrive at a show on a Jerr-Dan, unload their van and send it on to a garage for repairs while they put on their show. That probably sums up the fortitude of every exhibitor I know. The show always goes on.

Ann and I had a Jerr-Dan angel pull up behind us, on Interstate 84 in the Catskills in New York State. We were leaving the New Paltz spring show some Memorial Day Monday. It was still very light out. I was passing a semi on a two lane section when there was an explosion and a tire blew at seventy miles an hour. The noise confused Ann, but I knew, and quit passing the truck and got to the berm when the truck was clear. “Blew a tire,” I told her, and got out to assess the damage.

I was on the phone with AAA shortly, and the operator told me it would be several hours; we were in a very isolated piece of upstate New York just for starters, and it was the holiday weekend. Just then a Jerr-Dan pulled in behind us. “Never mind,” I told the operator. “He’s here already.”

An elderly fellow climbed down, we unloaded the van to the extent of accessing the spare. He changed the tire, we reloaded the van and I asked him how much I owed him. “Nothing, m’am,” he assured me. He was retired and spent his spare time cruising the interstate in his Jerr-Dan, looking out for trouble to fix.

Ann came round the back with a tin of her oatmeal cookies and insisted he take a couple. He did, ate one, reached back in the can for a couple more, and then said, “Now, I’m going to follow you girls to the next exit and I want you to pull into the service station there. That spare tire is low; I’ll fill it up and check all your tires and send you along. I’ll need to charge you a couple more cookies.”

If you had to choose between coffee, chocolate, or Scotch eggs, which would it be and who would you have it with?

Question five and a half from Jacqueline at Cheapskate Blethering. Hop  over to see her contest.  

Coffee. My friends could have anything they wished. All leaning in around the table, sharing good time stories and bad and in between.

I’ll celebrate with people who spent those twenty years with me. Linda, for eating pizza and drinking beer on the curb in Rochester, and sharing the cheapest room in town at many a show. Ann, always game to  get on a plane from Wisconsin to help at a show. The only person who could navigate me through Louisville.  Beth, who slept all the way home from any show.

My sister Jan, who said to me, in the very beginning, and these are her exact words: “if we’re going to do this together, we might as well live together.” It was getting old, forty five miles up or down the interstate to work out problems.  We turned in our old homes, found this perfect studio, and joined forces.

I see more than coffee is being served. The tea drinker has opened the wine. That Scotch egg is growing on me. It needs a good porter. I wonder if chocolate suits?

######

Postscripts:

I found a picture of Sue, being mauled by Fiona, one of our Cairns besotted by her. It’s posted on question 5.

Although I have no pictures of the jacket from hell, Linda does, and also sent a picture of her mother Alberta, in the longer version of the jacket. You remember Alberta, with the famous garden. The jackets are posted on question 4.

Finally, many thanks to Jacqueline for organizing this; it has been a fun week. 

Our mother, Lenore Lytle.

We lived here only a few months when she came into the studio and said "Teach me to weave."

The Winter Band Concert and Marzipan

It has been three weeks since the great defeat put one loss in the football team's record. In that time the bands prepared their winter concert. White Band, Blue Band, Wind Symphony and Wind Symphony Percussion Ensemble. Close to two hundred youngsters.

All the bands were excellent, in my opinion, although Emily did point out they played fewer and easier songs. I have no idea. I left my hearing aids home and enjoyed myself immensely. The picture I regret not taking--the Percussion Ensemble, complete with Santa hats, except the director, who wore a grinch hat and a delightful accompanying grin.

Before.

The White Band.

Flutes are in the vicinity of the center right Poinsettia.

Emily is second row, second chair, this year.

You don't need to be blond to play flute,

except, it seems, to play

chairs one through three.

This young lady was on the other side of the podium.

Taking care of that hair must be difficult,

But isn't it magnificent!

Today the postal service brought me a package from my elf in Wisconsin. "Oh, Ann, you needn't have," I thought. I pulled several little parcels from the packing, and a big one. Little ones first, and they turned out to be marzipan. Ann knows I'd do a U-turn for marzipan. Isn't the Santa just a delight!

The big parcel was half a dozen suet cakes for my flying pigs. What a pleasant surprise.

Laura is a teenager today

Hard to believe the ten year old turned thirteen today. She has developed an independent and lovely sense of self and still runs up the stairs two at a time. Like all her siblings she is unremittingly cheerful.

When the walls of her room became populated entirely by her portraits of unicorns it was time to corral her direction, and the lovely Mrs. P is guiding her, through still life of squash and fried eggs. Mrs. P’s hip replacement is not progressing perfectly and she had to give up most of her teaching. Laura and one other student she kept, drawing away at the kitchen counter.

Art seems a part of Laura, like running up stairs two at a time. It is expressed in things she can control, like her drawing. Her style in clothing could not be imitated. Most of both girls’ wardrobes are either hand-me-downs or thrift store.  But as these two are at the end of the sibling and cousin line, where come the pass alongs? From adults. A friend of Jan’s is downsizing and sending the tiny clothes she wore thirty years ago. Laura selects carefully and rocks her choices.

Ann sent a backseat full of good clothing from her eighties office days. Blouses, nice tees that were outgrown, and the like. Watching Laura select what to keep was so interesting. The tees went to the donate pile. The office blouses were “keep.” Sometimes I wonder if she’s embarrassed by not looking like every other girl in class, but I don’t think so.

On my cell phone; a blouse from Ann. Look at the beautiful quill work. 

We were waiting at a nursery for our plants to be rung up;

I just took the picture.

Laura loves skirts, and probably dresses, too, but is limited to her sources, I think. I took Emily to help me find her a skirt to go with the leggin’s that flash up the stairs, two at a time. We didn’t hit pay dirt before I crapped out (my limit is thirty minutes before I seize up), but we did pass this dress, and it said “leggings and her blue jean jacket” to me.

Laura’s birthday present, on Helen, my faithful studio model of woven scarves.

Helen has no legs, or I would have found leggin's.

Helen does have perky little breasts, like the sister-in-law she was named for.

That was so long ago....

You can do this

When Beth lived upstairs on Whitcomb, Jan and I were just starting our weaving business.  Back in Mentor, every time a daughter moved out, I put a loom in the bedroom.  First Beth’s room, then Shelly’s.  Then in the dining room.  Down in Akron, after she and Tom married, Jan put a loom in her old bedroom.  Then one in the dining room.  They still ate meals there, until a second loom went into the dining room.  That’s when we bought this house, with the studio.

In the beginning we bought far too many looms.  Good looms are never a bad investment.  We learned from our looms, and then sent them back into the world, generally at a profit and never for a loss.  Until we learned a good deal more about them, we gladly went to look over looms that folks wanted to sell.  

The only Union Loom we ever owned we purchased in a distress situation.  The owner loved it, but needed the money.  It was a wrench for the woman to part with it; she had happy memories of learning to weave on it when she was a teen.  But, we paid up and loaded up and the deal was done.

Driving back we knew we really didn't want it, but…..   Let’s give it to Beth.  She can weave rugs!

I knew Beth was away on a business trip.  I also knew Chrissy had a key to take care of the cats.  Chrissy was very reluctant to agree with my request to let us into Beth’s house, as she should have been.  It was extremely presumptuous of Beth’s mother to put a loom in Beth’s dining room and wait for Beth to come home and find it.  But she let us in, and Jan and I hauled the loom up a long set of stairs and set it up in the dining room.  We put on the first warp and threaded the heddles and the reed.  Then we went home and waited for the phone call.

When it came I caught heck for involving Christina, but not for the loom, which really interested her.  In our ignorance of Union Loom braking systems, we put the first warp on the wrong direction.  Beth fought her way through it, and was a downhill weaver thereafter.  

She bought several looms and wove steadily for us until Bill came along and distracted her. Beth owned her house by then and all the looms lived in the garret.  Shelly and I finished emptying the looms up in the attic of desperately needed fabric while Beth and Bill made goo goo eyes downstairs.  By the time they married, all the looms were out of the attic and sold.

The Union Loom never made it to her attic; it did its service on Whitcomb. That’s where Ann learned to weave.  The Union had been pressed into service for fabric by then and Beth wove a couple of yards each night, when she came home from work.  Ann moved in with Beth temporarily, after selling her home, before moving to Wisconsin.  She came home from work earlier than Beth, and looking for something to pass the time, picked up a shuttle.  She accumulated her own looms in Wisconsin and wove for us until we retired. 

The  Union Loom we sneaked into Beth’s house?  The original owner said she’d like to buy it back.  So, having done its job, the loom went back to the person who loved it most.

Christina, the cat sitter who let us in.
During her harpsichord phase, twenty years ago.
She grew up to be a New York attorney.

Last look

Back to reality today, with a crash. I find the mean spirits have transcended to ludicrous, which I find preferable. But sorting out my pictures into coherent bits to spread over the week isn't a good idea, so stand back, here they are:

The weather was perfect. Two magnificent overnight storms, lightening, crashing thunder, rain pelting. It was still raining one morning for a couple of hours, so of course we went shopping.

Ann was out of bird seed and afraid her little friends had deserted her. Of course not; they even boosted her down the ladder. In addition to the nuthatch, the chickadees, and too many varieties of sparrow to note, I saw grosbeaks. We did not get an indigo bunting; they probably came the day I left.

This is wild geranium, and it has overtaken much of the yard and meadow. I took a turn on the mower (low gear and nothing requiring reverse, as I could not depress the brake enough to slow down enough to look down to find reverse!)

The swallows come out of the grainery when the mower starts, and accompany it on its rounds, dispensing with the bugs. Ann says they'll be leaving soon; among her first harbingers of winter.

A walk around the barn. Twenty years ago Pat intended to restore it. Ten years ago he planned to dismantle it and save the wood. Here is the silo, host to wild cucumber.

Look very close for light between the chinks of the last standing boards on the bank side of the barn.

This corner still stands, too.

An old souvenir.

The foundation.

Down on the lower end of the barn, a few uprights anticipating their fall.

At the grainery, Billy and Nanny consider getting up, but didn't.

A look at the creek on Ann's side of the road.

And on the other side. The creek is in one township on Ann's side, and another under the bridge and across the road.

The real front of Ann's house,

Waiting for Joe....