"Novelty"

Companies keep telling us that they've got something "NEW!", but I'm not so sure there's anything new under the sun.  Everything is a variation on a theme, and sometimes the old stuff is way cooler.  The latest IPad is just a chalkboard without the chalk.  Might we be better off with the chalk?

I liked hula hoops for a while.  I could hula hoop forever around my waist, long time on my leg, even longer on my arm, a while on my neck.  I hula hooped 3 circles at a time making them spin in different orbits on my waist, or a couple of limbs and a waist.  Geez, I was bored with nothing to do.  I showed off to Grandpa and fell down laughing when he hula hooped too.

Grandpa was born in the 1800s and was retired by the time I was born.  He was from a small town in central Tennessee.  Our family is supposed to be related to Robert E. Lee, but folks down there make sure you know that there are 2 Lee families in the area, the rich ones and us.

I tried to get Grandpa to talk about his growing up, but he wasn't a story teller.  He was a doer.  The rush seat of my child's chair wore out?  Grandpa wove a new one on it with nylon cord.  Durable.  Cotton would've looked nicer, but nylon is forever.  Nobody would ever need to weave a new seat for that particular chair.  He made lye soap that could take the skin off you.  Effective.  Grandma used it for laundry and kids were threatened with that soap if we got too dirty.  I tried to stay clean when we visited.

I got an unusual email this week.  A woman wrote to say that she had my great grandfather's bed and is willing to sell it.  She said I was the only one of the family she could locate, I'm guessing because I wrote about my great aunt Ila Rhea on this blog.  Cool!  A side benefit I never expected from blogging.  Any family interested in the bed and dresser, let me know.  I've asked how much they're asking, but don't have an answer yet.  The furniture is currently in Florida, so you'd also have to figure out how to get it.  (I suppose I shouldn't mention my naughty wondering whether or not the owner of this bed has to do things Presbyterian missionary style or S&M?)  The "history" referred to in the note is the genealogy that my great grandfather wrote.  If there's any family that wants to read it, I've scanned it and can send it to you.

I suppose my great grandfather must've been studious to write a genealogy.  I know he wrote a lot of letters in order to write it because that was before ancestry.com.  He was a mailman, riding his horse around the county. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."  I suppose he got all of that on a horse, but I like to imagine that it was a good job for someone who liked to visit with people.

I can't really say much about him since he was before my time, but I imagine him a lot like his son, my grandpa.  The kind of man who'd use nylon cord for a child's seat, and who would do the twist with a hula hoop.

Just playing with PhotoShop brushes to make the hula hoop today :)

Note ~ Mom says the bed was part of a bigger bedroom set and was supposed to go to my grandpa, but he didn't know how to bring to Ohio so it was willed to Ila Rhea instead.