Saturday, May 4, 2019

Mugs of Memory


We’ve left behind averages of 80-85 degrees in Florida and arrived to Massachusetts days of 50s and 60s, so I’ve been drinking more than my fair share of tea. As I was unloading the dishwasher yesterday I realized these weren’t just cups going on the shelves.






The yellow mug is from a trip to Portugal with a friend in the 90s.

There were two, but you know how that goes.



          The Union Jack was a gift from our daughter, possibly in reference to a

        trip My Guy and I took years ago, but for me it’s a reminder of when 

        my father was treated to a year at the Imperial Defense College in London

        where I had a glorious time at 16, bopping around the city on my own in a

        kinder era.



The third is a souvenir of a trip to San Antonio when My Guy was there on business and I met him for a mini-vacation. The River Walk shown on the mug was a definite tourist trap and we enjoyed every minute.



My Guy was stationed at Fort Ord in California during his stint in the army, and years later we managed to visit Monterey where our son was born.

For about 9 years we rented a house at Cape Cod for a week, our big vacation of the year. This mug is from one of our first visits.



These mugs are my oldest and newest.

The blue one is possibly one of the very first things I bought when we married.

I love the color, the cozy shape, and the way it feels in my hand. A true comfort mug. Somehow I’ve managed to keep it unchipped and unbroken all these 49 years.

The last is less interesting, but still a marker of a moment in time. A stranger appeared on my doorstep the first week we moved in here and handed it to me as a welcome to our complex.   

9 comments:

  1. We have a few cups, but I simply reuse my favorite one over and over, rinsing it out between uses. The others just take up space in the cupboard. :-)

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  2. I love when stories are shared of personal items like your mugs that carry a memory and story with them. Thanks for sharing!

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  3. I am with DJan. My favourite mug gets rinses and reused. Himself uses the others, and some are definitely memory filled even when empty.

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  4. Our mugs are like that, too, full of memories. We even have one from the dollar store — purchased during a hurricane evacuation when we were sick of drinking from plastic/paper cups. Didn’t know then it would become a receptacle of memories or we would have bought something nicer!

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  5. I'm with DJan on mugs. I've used the same one for the last seven years, when I bought it to fit the cup holder in my new car and also discovered the lid from the former car mug fit it perfectly.

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  6. The oldest blue one does look very comfortable. I have several mugs that are quite old, but the only things left from my wedding year is two teaspoons and a knife from the original 12 person setting.
    I never collected mugs from places I went to, but my mum collected souvenir teaspoons from dozens of places.

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  7. Sue also has teacups of memory. They don't get used much anymore, but she knows the stories.

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  8. we don't really drink from mugs at our house though we have at least half a dozen as they tend to accumulate whether you buy them or not. I have one I use on the rare occasion I have tea in the evenings in winter that a then friend gave me. The other I use has a Fireside cartoon on it of the Devil pointing to two doors labeled 'damned if you do' and 'damned if you don't' telling some hapless idiot to hurry up and choose.

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  9. Let me just say I am SUPER impressed you managed to keep that blue mug undamaged all this time! Fifty years (almost) is a long time for a favorite mug to last! Mugs are interesting records of our lives, for sure. I could do a post on mine, too. Maybe I should!

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