A little piece of the past: Vintage Vignettes

When I started this blog, I wanted to use it partially to bring bits of history to light. The bits of history we come across every day, the captured moments we find in an item from our past...whether it belonged to us or not. I first fell in love with *history* in 4th grade, the year we learned about California history, and my class was lucky enough to take an overnight field trip to Sutter's Fort, where we dressed like pioneers, worked in the different Fort facilities, making candles, baking bread, selling and buying wares, cooking for 40 or so people, and even standing guard for one shift in the middle of the night. It definitely was the impetus for this ongoing love affair I have with all things related to history.  I'm not an expert at California or American history, but I can tell you there is a story behind every item you see in the antique shop. The small material possessions that we all have are the things that make up our lives - the permanence that will remain long after we are gone (luckily, most of our antiques are not plastic - too bad for our grandchildren...).

Right after my sophomore year of college, I decided to take a year off from school because I still had no idea what I would major in, a decision that was weighing on me and had to be decided soon, at the beginning of my junior year. One Saturday morning I was passing a yard sale where I spied an old, wooden, stand-up radio. This was a piece of furniture - and gorgeous! I somehow attained it for only $15 and the man I bought it from helped me lift it into the trunk of my car. Somehow or another I found out it was a 1929 Atwater-Kent. I found some fabric I liked and re-upholstered the hole in the wood that sat in front of the speaker. The electronic radio parts no longer worked - but no matter ( I kept them but never tried to get it fixed), I used it as a furniture piece in my bedroom, for my things - jewelry, perfume - above which a mirror was placed. Once I even put my current stereo inside and a small speaker where the old speaker had been (not that the sound quality was great through the layers of fabric). On the top of this old radio there was a ring stain - made from a glass of water? A vase of flowers? A vodka tonic? Who knows...but this stain held a story - this stain was the evidence of someone's life - the original owner of the radio perhaps.....I could picture a woman in a dress, standing near the radio. She places her glass of water - still wet on the outside - onto the radio's wood top, as she leans down to push the ottoman in front of her easy chair. She wants to get comfortable for the evening radio show. She goes back to the radio to get her glass of water and sits in her chair for her show. Later, when her show is over, she is about to turn off the lamp that sits on the radio, she sees the ring of water there. "Darn," she thinks, and starts to rub it off, but she can see the stain has already set...

Well, who knows. But this is my imagination, running wild around objects of the past as it always does. I suppose this little ring stain figured it's way into my life and helped me decide that year off to major in history. And now, as I'm about to go back to school in the fall to finish a Master's in Public History, I want to infuse it into my life in some different ways, different from visiting museums or reading books. And this is where you all come in.

So here goes...I am starting a little collection on this blog called "Vintage Vignettes" - which is something like what I've done above, but very wide open. I want to collect stories from the past, vignettes really, just scenes from lives.  This can be in the form of a photograph, a memory you have (needs to be at least 20 years old), or a story you have from a grandparent's life. This can be an item mentioned that we no longer use in every day life, even a thought you may have on how people once lived before the modern day (see Blue Yonder's Blue Blazes for example!), an oral history interview you were lucky enough to participate in, an antique or vintage item you just had to have because...? It has to be personal though. That is the only caveat. No stories about a history exhibit you saw, unless, say, some item stood out to you for some reason, and you want to write about that particular thing as it relates to your life. If you desire, please write these in your blogs (please link back to this entry so other people can participate), let me know, and I will post that entry into my sidebar under "Vintage Vignettes." If it is a photograph you want to post, please become a member of the Flicker Group Vintage Vignettes and post your photo there! Please add a title/caption and some description to give it a sense of time and/or place. This is all about telling stories, whether they be true or "tales out of school" this is the place for them. Share/tell as many as you'd like. They can be short (1-2 sentences) or long (whatever your blogsite will hold!) I will be doing this too, my goal is to make this a regular post, or at least as often as they come to me - I may choose a day for this. Sunday seems like a nice, dreamy day for vintage - but we'll see!  Please have fun with this! I can't wait to read your stories and see your photos! 

(by the way, if you do not have a blog but want to participate, please email me your story and I will post it in one of my entries, crediting you. Then I will place that day's entry under the sidebar "Vintage Vignettes." Make sure to give your story a title!)

Darkened Theatres, a Disappointing Twist and a Dying Breed

Yesterday was a landmark day. It was the first time in over 28 months that my husband and I have seen a movie. I've missed movies. I've missed arriving early and sitting in the darkened theatre munching on popcorn. It was such a treat and where we used to take for granted that freedom of being able to come and go as we please, yesterday we savored each moment. We even went to dinner afterward! Our son is getting older and we are becoming more willing to leave him in the care of another person. We enjoyed it so much that we thought we could do it once a month. I hadn't even driven in the front seat of my hubby's car but one other time since he bought it. Times have changed. Well, I wouldn't trade my life for the world, but it sure was nice to see a movie.

We saw "State of Play" - our anniversary was 2 weeks ago and we specifically waited for this movie to come out to go on our "date." My husband loves Russell Crowe. In fact, the last movie I saw in the theatre before going into labor was "A Good Year," also with Crowe. The movie was great - a mystery with twists and turns, lots of great actors (most notably Jason Bateman who does an awesome job in his small role - seems to be a trend for this actor who rose up from the death of his teen heartthrob status) and a theme that threaded through the film about the dying off of newspapers as the internet takes over the role of news reporting. The movie was great until about 10 minutes before it ended when it took a final twist. As soon as the film ended my hubby said, "It was great until that last twist." My sentiments exactly (do couples just start thinking alike after a certain amount of time together?). That twist sold the film out. You sort of wonder why the actors who were previously meant to play these roles that Crowe and Ben Affleck ended up playing, dropped out (Brad Pitt and Ed Norton). I have no real idea, I'm only guessing that the final twist at the end backs off the political implications the film makes up until that point, and sells out. You can almost hear some producer saying, "No, we can't put that film out - it's too politically inflammatory. Add on a final scene that doesn't look like it accuses anyone of anything." Sorry for being so vague about the film, but I don't want to review it here or give anything away since it is an entertaining film and for me it was worthwhile because it helped me understand military-industrial complex a whole lot better. The best part about this film though, was the theme that ran through regarding the dying out of newspapers as the reported news is being replaced by blogs and other forums on the internet.

The final montage - played as the credits flashed after the film itself was over - was of a newspaper in several incarnations as it goes from being a celluloid sheet to being in print form, following the printing process until the newspapers are in stacks, wrapped in plastic and put on a big delivery truck. It took place in a lonely warehouse room - with very few people (possibly only the driver of the truck). In the background played CCR's "Long As I Can See the Light," a song about dying. I call that scene "Ode to the Newspaper." It was sweet - only a technical overview of the printing process but the music in the background and the film just seen gave it a sad feeling. It may be awhile before newspapers are completely gone, but surely that is the way they are headed. As Ben Affleck spoke about on Rachel Maddow last week as he promoted this movie, he imagined a scene sometime in the future where his daughter found out about newspapers. Roughly paraphrased from memory here: "You mean the news was printed on paper and the paper was brought to each house?" Weird, huh? Yeah, weird. Here's to blackened fingers after a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast over the paper. Although, really now - when was the last time I had time for that?

West coast family, An auntie's wisdom, the Handmade process

great grandma's hand-stitched quilt

We hail from the west coast - my whole family, both sides, live all up and down the west. My sister lives in a village in rural - make that "the bush"- Alaska, I have cousins in Seattle, an aunt and more cousins in Boise, my folks here in Sactown, and more cousins and an aunt in various places in southern California. I had one aunt in Texas. She lived south of Houston, on a little island - right up to about last September. My husband, son and I were in Boston as we watched the news of Hurricane Ike in all of it's doppler radar colors creep slowly up over Houston. My aunt had fleed north to weather the storm and escape its eye, but her little house was flooded beyond repair, and subsequently razed, along with many of its - her things.

I often think about how my aunt's devastation was my mother's and my luck. In January, she came to our town to live. Strangely enough she had been considering moving here - as we are her only family - and well before she had considered moving here I had had a dream that she lived here and was quite comfortably celebrating Christmas with us. Presto-chango, my aunt - whom I really did not know aside from the occasional card, crafted gift and infrequent visit - now lives here. It is great having her here. My mom is enjoying their time together too. My mom (who is also great with her hands, although uses different mediums - like beadwork = gorgeous necklaces) only recently, surely due to my aunt's influence, has picked up a crochet hook and knitting needles and gone to work on a ball of yarn. Friday evenings have become a semi-regular dinner date for all of us, where we get to show off our latest project. My aunt is a master craftsperson - although I'm not sure she would describe herself that way. She's done just about every thing a person can do with handcrafts and it is awesome to be able to learn from her.

In her house was many a project, books, and the things that make up a life. Much of it, save for the items higher up, was lost in the hurricane. I think about the handmade items that she can never again take out - the time spent on them, the resources lost. She works on new things now every day, and every time I see her I learn something new about her and tips or advice about whatever project I happen to be working on. What a gift for me - I only hope she enjoys sharing her knowledge and the wisdom that comes from all that she's done as much as I enjoy receiving it.

One of her latest projects is working on a quilt top. She's doing it by hand. Hand sewing. Not machine. "Why would you want to do it by hand when you can do it by machine?" I asked. "It's part of the process," she said. Of course. The sound you hear is my future master's degree bonking me in the head. That's sort of hard to explain. The whole idea of doing any work with your hands is to slow the process down, right? The truth is, we can buy just about anything we want. Just purchase it. But to make it yourself - to twist the silver with pliers, cut out the shape you have drawn, or pull the needle and thread through the fabric - the process of making something out of nothing, that is why we do it. The end product is great, yes, but the idea of the end product - the vision in your head of what it will look like before it is complete - that is what moves our hands. The repetition of the process, the more fluid way the hands move each time something is done, the way that the hands move as the motions go from being awkward and new to becoming fluid and familiar. All of this is the process. It has been done since forever and the speed with which we can produce things and buy them now makes it easy to forget how long it once took to create an item. A shirt, a chair, or a quilt were once so cared for that they went through numerous incarnations. Let us not forget our humble beginnings - we are rediscovering some humility as our dire economy toils on.

Anyway, here's a great big shout out to my aunt, and a real long explanation for the new button on my sidebar. Buy handmade - you'll know who made it - maybe not personally but at least by name, and it might not be perfect but it will have heart, something Walmart doesn't have.

Kite history and other stories

Kite-flying/trying

Yesterday it was a balmy California day and there was just enough wind to try out our new kite! We took it to the park and tried to get it up but by the time we got there and walked diagonally through the back-to-back ball games, the wind had mostly died down. We were unsuccessful this time but will try again - today is looking a bit breezy too...

I have a great memory of flying a kite with my mom. We took our kite to the local junior high school field out behind our house and I recall mom yelling, "O.k. now RUN, RUN, RUN!" And I ran and ran and ran and the kite was so high in the sky. I could feel the tug of the spool of string in my hand and I remember thinking, "I can't believe how high it is!" It was an exhilarating feeling to have gotten that kite up in the air.

I don't have a snapshot of this event except in my mind's eye so I cannot convey it in any way except through words. This is one of the reasons I love oral history so much. I love sitting down and listening to a story from someone who lived during a time way before I was born. The feeling of the event told shines through the words and conveys the event in the rise and fall of the voice and the emotion of the event always comes through.

Last year I got the chance to interview my dad through Storycorps, a wonderful oral-history project through NPR that gives two people the chance to sit down and have an hour-long interview. A Storycorps booth provides everything you need: a sound-recording system, a table, a dimmed, soundproof room, and a facilitator to help you through the technicalities. All you need is someone to interview and your questions. Afterwards, you get a CD of the interview and that interview also gets its very own spot in the Library of Congress, so your great-grandchildren or someone else who may need to do research on your family can listen to it someday too. NPR also has a Storycorps broadcast that you can listen to on your local public radio - that comes in podcast form too - my favorite way of listening!

Since I'm on the subject of the Library of Congress, let me include here the reason for its place on my side bar. The Library of Congress has this neat section called the American Memory Digital Library. All you need is what's in front of you: a computer with speakers. Listen to oral histories, folk music recordings, ex-slave narratives; see advertisements from the 1800's, maps from the Civil War, photos from the turn of the century...this place is a history lover's delight. Anyway, click on the link above and you can browse the collection by topic. This is where I'd be all day if I didn't have a thousand other things to do! Enjoy!