Welcome Words: history

Showing posts with label history. Show all posts

Friday, August 26, 2016

Hoarder or Scientist?

What? You don't have a rhinoceros skull?

The other day I was casting about for a venue for a day out with a friend.

Of Cabbages and Kings

Last evening was all about cabbage and cribbage and the mixed success of each.

Raising the Dead

I’m not sure if any connection was intended, but our small town used the Columbus Day weekend to commemorate some explorers of our own.

Over and Done

I was on my appointed rounds today when I noticed an unexpected change in the scenery – a SOLD sign on a long-derelict building that sits on the state road through town.

It all started with my lap board, the one I use in the living room when I feel like a change of scenery with my lap top computer. I had bought the board when my husband was laid up with a broken leg. Now, several years later, its cushy bean bag pad had died, so even with meaty thighs it could grow uncomfortable after a couple of hours.

So of course the obvious solution was a trip to the grocery store for several bags of dried peas.

The Fridge Man Cometh

So last Saturday at 8 o’clock I dialed a number I’ve had for at least thirty-five years, but haven’t used for about six. Would he still be there? If so, does he still help people like me?

Protecting the Past

My Grandfather Walker's home in Sapulpa, Oklahoma was almost a 'shot gun' style bungalow. When you entered through the front door, you came upon the first room, and the remainder of the first floor unfolded, room by room, until you reached the kitchen. The house was identical to the one next door, where my great-grandmother Rundell had lived. When my grandparents married, she had had the second house constructed and instructed my grandmother Mamie that she and her new husband Don, a young Sapulpa lawyer, would be living there. Great-grandmother Rundell was a force to be reckoned with, but that's another story.

I remember walking around that first room as a child. It was completely filled with the type of bookcases you would find in a lawyer's office. The front of each shelf was covered by wood-framed glass door that you would lower to protect all those legal volumes from dust. Except my Grandfather Walker's bookcases were not filled with heavy leather-bound books of past cases. His had moccasins and beadwork and best of all, rattlesnake tails. My grandfather collected Indian and Southwestern artifacts.

After my father died, the UPS man delivered a large cardboard box to my house in Massachusetts. I carried the box to the dining room table, snipped the string, and cut open the tape. Underneath layers and layers of the Washington Post was a huge buff-colored bowl. I lifted it out and placed it on the table. It was a foot and a half high and about the same in diameter at its widest, rising to travel back in slightly to a wide neck with a lip. The outside was decorated with faded black geometric designs and occasional accents of deep russet. It was a Zuni Indian bowl and this bowl had not seen life from the safety of a shelf. Its worn edge and soft colors said it had been used on a daily basis, perhaps to hold corn or grain.

It sat in my living room for years on a low shelf under a window. I enjoyed looking at it and thinking of my Oklahoma roots and my grandfather’s room of wonder. Then two things happened. First, while watching an episode of Antiques Roadshow I learned the worth of a similar bowl, not quite as large as mine. Second, my daughter produced three rambunctious sons.

Our Zuni bowl now lives a quiet retired life on my bedroom dresser.