The Sewing Box

Forty years ago I was part of a small group of girls who were recipients of some sewing skills via a very low-key, local 4-H club.  I still have the red gingham apron with black embroidery floss x’s one inch above the hem. I remember working on that in the basement of the South Byron Methodist church.
I have the red felt tomato pincushion I made.

Gone are the fringed pink burlap place mats with pulled threads and dark blue embroidery floss where the threads were pulled. They were made at Margie’s home, and her mother taught us how to thread a needle.

But best of all was my sewing box.  It was a shoebox covered inside and out with a small gold multi-colored paisley print cotton. I remember the house and table where it was made.  Either Mrs. Duttweiller or Mrs. Oderkirk taught us. It was perhaps the start of an abiding interest in several areas: origami, textiles, boxes.  The planning and care in cutting resulted in a wonderful fabric covered box that I used for decades.  Elmer’s glue held the fabric to the shoebox.  There were no raw edges.  Every surface was covered and neat.

Moving On

Could not bring myself to mention it before.  Two more old acquaintances died recently.  Lloyd Cotterill gave me my first job as a second semester freshman at Cornell milking cows at the the Teaching and Research Center out in Harford.  He was a kind man.

He also gave me a raise within a couple months.  Looking back I think it was because it was apparent that, unlike most of the other student help, I had actually worked with a dairy herd before.  In high school in the mid-70′s I made more money per hour ($5.00) than anyone I knew milking cows for a rich dairy farmer.  Seems oxymoronic now to have that adjective connected to that job, but it was true then.  The farmer’s son drove a red Italian sports car.

Anyway, I remember Lloyd with grateful thanks.  At that point in college I was incredibly homesick for the familiar.  Living in a dorm with other women was so foreign: I have two brothers.  Living on a campus full of people was so foreign: I am from a rural farm.  Living where there were no animals was so foreign: Animals were about the best friends I had at home.  So this part-time job–I was the only female student working there, out in the country far away from campus, milking cows for hours–was like a small reprieve from real life.  A much needed reprieve.

My suitemate–we shared a small sink but each had our own room–was from Long Island and a graduating class larger than the population of our whole school district.  It was like she was from a different planet.  Until the middle of the second semester, when I got up the courage to ask, I thought she hated me but could not bring herself to tell me to my face.  Why else would you always lock the door between our rooms?  We had only started locking the doors of our home at night after the incident that became the book In Cold Blood and a rash of local barn burnings.

_________

Carl Leopold was Jay’s friend.  He was a son of Aldo Leopold.  Carl tells a bit more about himself here. He and Jay would talk about WWII,  gardening, hunting. Carl was a gentleman. And charming.  He was very interesting to talk to because he was involved in so many different ideas.  I loved hearing about his reforestation project in Costa Rica.

Jay and the children went to Carl and Lynn’s home more than once to help with wood and clean out an old railroad built  spring-filled water reservoir that served as their water source.  He came here for lunch in the summer with other co-workers when the gardens were blooming and producing.  I would see and talk to  Carl and Lynn at MaryAlyce and Jonathan’s garden parties and BTI affairs.

We are especially saddened by his death as Carl loved creation but seemed not to love the Creator.  We hope we are wrong.

Extended TDY

No family likes it when their soldier son, husband, brother, nephew goes TDY (tour of duty).  The separation is oh-so-noticeable.  My brother was an adventurous sort, though.  He loved to travel, and travel he surely did.  This final tour, the extended one, I imagine he will be doing what he did, what he loved to do,  his whole professional career: going on ahead, preparing the way for the safe, secure embarkation and arrival of others.

The sharp new tang of this, his last departure, tends to encroach and overwhelm the reality of the necessity to keep on keeping on.  I need to remind myself of my own duty here.  He surely would remind me, in tones and words not subtle or especially kind.

As I age and friends and family leave me behind, 1 Corinthians 15 has become for me much more vivid, real, and affirming.

John Sackett III is much more able now to perform his duty than ever he was here.  The perishable has become imperishable; the mortal, immortal.

Another Friend Gone

Ellie emailed me today with news that Celia is dead.

About 15 years ago Jay was wrongly accused of a misdeed at his former job.  He was charged with a felony.  We spent a year’s plus adoption savings retaining the best lawyer in town–and the charges were dropped. But the lawyer kept the fee, and eventually Jay was pushed out of the job in an academic atmosphere that was smarmy at best.

He was without work for several months. He had a specific list of items “the perfect job” would have, which was the subject of much prayer. Not that he would have refused a job not meeting those criteria, you understand.

The summer came.  The Black Sheep Handspinner’s Guild, of which I have been a member for over two decades now, were having a picnic down at Stewart Park, where there used to be  a merry-go-round.  It was owned by Black Sheep members. We had Isaac then and everyone with children (and some without) liked to ride the horses. Over and over and over.

Anyway, as we were laying out the picnic, Celia and I were talking and she asked if I knew anyone who needed a job.  Well, yes, I did.  Jay needed one.  She spoke to him then and there, hiring him part time essentially on the spot.  It soon turned into a full time position.  And guess what?  It is the job he still has.  It is the job he still loves.  It is the job that still meets each and every one of the items on Jay’s list of “the perfect job”.

All thanks to Celia.

Departures and a Milestone

Our friends have left us for Canada and then the East.  We miss them already.  It was a lovely, busy, full time while they were here.

Saturday a week ago one of my friends from after college died.  She was 51.  Married for 26 years with two sons, 17 and 8 years of age.  Breast cancer.

Hawthorne has been with us seven months today.  He is currently the tick king.  He likes very much to snuffle around deer beds on his morning walks.  I think that is where he is picking them up.  The girl has had two on her as well.  She however does not snuffle deer beds to the best of my knowledge.  Our vet says the high rate of tick infestation is a subject of discussion at the vet school.

A Few Words About Banner

The last time we saw Banner was Labor Day weekend.  She left with her second batch of kittens born this year in late summer.  I woke up to the sound of pouring rain this morning and thought of her.  I hope she is still with them, alive and chipper.

She came to us Labor Day 2006 as a starving little baby picked up by a friend of Jay’s from a sidewalk with a sibling and kept for a over a week in a cat carrier fed nothing but green grapes.  Her sibling died from starvation.  We were able to keep Banner alive.

She lived in the house until very late that year.  Then she moved into the bunny pen for awhile in the box Jay built specially for her.

I miss her daily.

Another Friend Gone

We got word yesterday that Jack Hunter succumbed to the massive stroke that felled him Sunday. Gentle, genial, generous, jovial Jack.