Away An Bile Yer Heid!

Kids and I decided on the spur of the moment on Saturday afternoon to depart the Green Mountain State and descend on my Dad and Stepmom. They live in a new house on the outskirts of an old village near Albany, New York. The weather was great and, truth to tell, we had nothing on our Labor Day Weekend social calendar. Also, it is always a treat for us to visit them, with their multiple bathrooms, central air conditioning and profligate number of electrial outlets. Whusband had the lawn to cut. We were off.

As luck would have it, the Capital District Highland games were on, over in the Highlands of Altamont, New York - another small village near Albany.

Ma heid's birlin wi all these uncanny ties to Scotland!

These are simply cold facts: Robert Burns and I were both born on January 25, (albeit a couple of centuries apart). I have a great-grandmother on my mother's side named Ella Macomber. Maisy, our dog, was fostered by a breeder of Cairn Terriers. Maisy's middle name is, hand to heart, "McTavish". Kids and I frequently quote Groundskeeper Willie. If pressed, I could use "bonnie" in a sentence. How could I miss a chance to hang around with a lot of Americans looking for an excuse to wear their kilts in a straight, non-Goth sort of atmosphere. We could find Maisy's tartan! If there was anything there with Groundskeeper Willie's picture on it, I could buy it.

As an aside, and by another spooky coincidence, I had recently been researching the Scots' reaction to Groundskeeper Willie. Everytime he comes on The Simpsons, I wonder what the people in Scotland - not the Americans with Scottish last names but actual Scottish people -think of Willie. I was surprised to learn that GW is the best known Scot in America. Based on the on-line comments I read (the Times [London] ran a story lamenting the depth of American ignorance of Scotland and that attracted lots of commentary), the Scots seemed to take this in stride and with a good sense of humor. They seemed to like Willie themselves, (shut yer geggy, Times) as well they should. So, off our little mongrel clan of German-English-Dutch-Irish-Polish-Irish-etc. selves went for a proper Scots-American wallow.

Scotland the Reinterpreted

This Clydesdale, and two sheep, stood in for the special animals of Scotland. The horse was sort of like the Highland Games version of the greeter at WalMart; the first thing you saw, blinking at passersby. Laconic, like a true Scot. Kid 2, who shall henceforth be known as "Shackleton", (more on that coming soon) can always be persuaded to stand near a horse and have his picture taken. Doesn't this just scream "Scotland?"



Of course, we had to beat our way through the crowds to the tent featuring odd Scots and English brands of foods. Is there a reason these items are not available on the shelves of your local Price Chopper? Like, they are unpleasant to the taste? Actually, HP sauce is consumed by one or two Canadians I have met.



There was not as great clamor for oat-based products as you might have expected. Stepmom only modeled the oatcakes. We were saving our money for some other scaffy Scots swag (a key chain for Shackleton and Claddagh Ring for Kid 1 - henceforth, "the Understudy." Yeah, Claddagh rings are Irish, I know, but this is America and as the Times will tell you people here have trouble telling Scotland and Ireland apart).





Toffee - doesn't it make you think of a hairy cow?



Plaid all over the place. The Crocodile Dundee figure here is mirrored by a kind of evil twin, the woman in the plaid shorts and tank top with bra strap.



Look it's Maisy's middlename! Well, sort of. We spell it McTavish.




Close your eyes and it was like you were there. Note the traditional Scots Tevas.



I must say I was impressed by the gentlemen manning the Scots Military History tent. It's amazing how manly they are in their skirts and hats with the pom poms. I really mean that too.





Ladies?






Perhaps security concerns prevented the crowds from coming within 50 feet of these wee lassies.



Shackleton wandered over to the pavilion of The British Shop. The proprietress was from that British outpost, Buffalo, New York. She looked daggers at me and poor little Shackleton as I pushed her $80 hat on his head.



There was tent where contemporary Gaelic rock blared for hours. There were massed bands (bagpipes drums, what have you). There was a caber toss. Only one guy got the caber, which is another way to say "log", to go end over end, which is the object of the event. Some women were throwing a sack of hay over a pole in a kind of hay-toss high jump. When is that going to be an Olympic event? But can you believe, not one image of Willie anywhere in sight? I liked this though:

How it Was Made - 1930s Wedgwood etc.

Just a quick post here to share a web discovery I just made over at the Potteries website: I'll post a link over on my favorites list.

Being that I come home a couple of times a month with a bag full of old pottery, and that lots of this stuff is English, I am frequently over at The Potteries website doing a little research. It's a great resource chock-a-block with free info. about the famous potteries of North Staffordshire. I am not sure how the site is funded but they are doing a great job informing the public about one of England's seminal industries and still one of its most important. Next time someone puts an old plate in front of you, maybe at Thanksgiving, you might want to flip it over and check out the mark. If you can remember anything about it next time you are at your computer, take that scrap of information to their website and you might find out some fascinating bit of history about your dinnerware (or not, but why not try).

One fabulous aspect of the site is that it includes among its riches some period publications on how the pottery was made. Remember poor Charles Dickens at the glue factory? No children in evidence by the time we get to the 1930s but look at the circles around the eyes of the Einstein figure:



Looking through the 22 cards that show Wedgwood manufacture, probably in the 1920s, maybe the '30s, you get a glimpse right back into the industrial revolution. Ditto the brochure from the Parrot &Co. factory of 1936. No wonder the early 20th century involved that huge and cataclysmic divide between bosses



and workers.



Smile everyone, smile - hold still...

Don't these pictures tell a tale of a vanished world? (good riddance too). Check out the state of the window by our lady transferring a print to a plate. I don't think Dickens got a window, so I guess it probably represented a general improvement in conditions.



And what a copywriter! Who'd have thunk of dishmaking as involving any "plunging" or "attacking"? Not I, until now.

What a lot of sweat, dirt and labor went into making pretty dishes.

Not That You Asked, But Here's What I Did Today - Check Out the World's Coolest Teapot

Back to the Stowe Rec Path this AM. I know, I know, you've seen one path winding through the woods you've seen 'em all. Move on. Yawn. Sorry, by every time I get there for a walk I am struck again by how beautiful it is and snap, snap, snap. I must photograph it. I'll post these few and then we'll have a moratorium on bike path pictures for a bit.



This charming little edifice is one of the nice little surprises of the path. It's a memorial to somebody. I think I would prefer this to a tombstone for my own self when the time comes.



Onto each beautiful bike path a substation must fall.



Remember what I said about some of the local maple trees rushing into their fall colors? It was true.


It was not a work day for me today but in an uncharacteristic show of effort, I went to the office anyway. Mostly I went in to fill out a time sheet and an expense report but I also checked email and phone messages. Oh, and on the way out of town, it occurred to me that I had just time enough before it was time for my son's dental appointment to stop by my favorite antique store, M. Lewis of Waterbury.

Talk about Aladdin's Cave! "M" stands for Martha and she and I had a nice chat over my purchase of the most beautiful teacup in the world back in April. She wasn't there today; the store is usually manned (resist snide comment here) by her helper. While he was wrapping up my teapot and plate (coming up in just a moment) he told me that Martha's weakness, the one that eventually led her into the antiques trade and this store, was for teacups and teapots. I sensed she was a kindred soul...



This is just one of several tea cup displays in her shop. It's like a kind of pornography for me.



My grandparents had this same bit of needlework on the wall of their dining room for as long as they had a dining room. My mother and her twin sister bought it for them when they were little girls. I am tempted each time I go in the shop to buy it. I always think, well, that's pretty good, isn't it? Is more ambition than that necessary or even desirable? Dime store profundity. Sign me up. Except now that this is out of Woolworth's and in an antique store it costs 35 dollars. I'll make do with the picture...


And, at last, today's purchases. Yes, another plate. Didn't I ask someone to stop me before I bought another plate? Of course, none of you few dear readers was around to stay my grasp. This lovely old "flow brown" platter just called to me and I answered the call. I don't know if there is such a thing as "flow brown" but the blurring of the image makes me think it isn't transfer ware or that it is some particular flowy kind of transfer ware. It has a great horking crack in it to, which accounts for it's thirty dollar price tag (undamaged it would have been a lot more). I got them to knock three dollars off the price in combo with the teapot, which also got a three dollar discount off its 20 dollar price;




et enfin, the teapot. I defy anyone to say that this is not a super cool teapot that could have been owned by Gladys Peto (see the sidebar) or Buck Rogers or someone similarly fabulous and or fictional. It is English, no doubt dating from the 20s and 30s. It is crazed and stained and has a little scrape on the lid, but the shape, oh the shape. Watch out! It may take flight at any moment.



This teapot, maybe with a better picture, is going to have to find a place in the sidebar, it is just that wonderful.

Here, by way of a postscript, is a poor little picture of the Made in Japan bookends I picked up at that other little antique shop I wrote about recently. That place is basically a junk shop without pretensions to being anything else and the prices reflect that sensibility. These were, some of you may recall, 2 dollars.



And last, but not least, this is the book I have been reading, page by page, for the last several weeks. You know how I am about Handsome Books. Isn't this a beauty? It may have more detail about Alfred than we care to know (all those "Ethels", i.e., Ethelbald, Ethelred, Ethelbert, Ethelswith, Ethelthis, Ethelthat); but it is actually very well written by a lady Oxford scholar. It is ex at least two libraries; the Craftsbury Academy Library and the Bolton Public Library. I bought it at the book sale at the Stowe Library, though I don't think it was in their collection. Another 2 dollars well spent.

Back on the Bike Path - Oh So Vermonty!

I had an hour to myself this morning between kid drop-off and when I had to be to work, so back to my old favorite haunt, the Rec Path in upscale Stowe, Vermont. It was a particularly beautiful morning and Vermont scenery, not so cliche in person, demanded to be recorded by yours truly.



An entreprenuerial farmer whose cornfield borders the Path sets up this corn maze every year.

To lure passers-by into the maze he employs Junior and Brownie. (I don't know if those are their names, but they could be). As you can see, they are very fetching. I know the Smiths would not approve. I can't look at a scrubbed up little calf without hearing Morrissey intoning, "This Beautiful Creature Must Die" (I was in college in the 80s), but Junior and Brownie don't seem any the worse for wear for being a kind of living sign for a corn maze. I hope they have a future as milkers and not as burgers and handbags.



And meet Junior's mother, or possibly her aunt, or some other female relative or acquaintance, the charming "102" as per her necklace. Where can I get one of those? Every time my kids see a diet commercial these days they say, "Mommy why don't you try that?" That cow is like a sister to me.



My Dad grew up on a dairy farm and my aunts told me it meant rain when the cows laid down, but I think they were having me off. It was beautiful all day today. I think when cows lay down it means they are tired or lazy; or they are just crappy forecasters.



Ohh, and here's a salamander surprise!





The part of the path I like best is lined by trees on either side. It feels so continental somehow. Remember that '70s shopping-mall-poster-shop favorite of the French guy (i.e., guy with a beret) on the bicycle riding along with a loaf of French bread on the back of his bike? He's riding on a narrow road with a those skinny French poplars lining the route. Well, this reminds me of that, without the French guy or the poplars, or the bread.



I was dusted by Grandma here, though. I walk on the path for exercise, but I walk slowly, apparently. And this isn't just because I stopped to take a picture. She had been gaining on me steadily for quite awhile.

Something New; Something Old; Summer's End

The last day of summer doesn't officially arrive until September 21, but, up here on the Canadian border, a few leaves on some stressed maples are already showing red and some of the ferns, lush green a week ago, are going brown. More drastic, the kids are going back to school tomorrow. Goodbye Summer 2008. Short, sweet and wet.

I went skipping around my corner of the blogiverse today and found that most of my frequent haunts have been lightly maintained of late. The same has been true here. The "something new" in today's title refers to this fresh post, the last one having gone stale almost as fast as a Montreal bagel, and some time ago. I assume that most of my favorite bloggers have been dealing with their lives away from the computer. Well, there is that whole child-rearing, family and friends visiting, earning a living business with which to deal. These distractions have occupied me nearly completely for the last week or two. Work, dentist appointments, school shopping, etc. Worse, we had a party here this weekend, and what a time-suck that was.

The point was partly to celebrate Whusband's achievement of a Great Age earlier this summer (the party had to wait because his birthday arrived while I was visiting my mother in Florida); and partly for a last hurrah before the school schedule enforces its discipline on all of us. We had about 20 people here last night to feed the mosquitoes. Poor things. (The people, not the mosquitoes.) Let me tell you, in case you didn't already know, but it is a deal of work getting a lawn party for 20. Oh, now I remember why we don't have big parties! I had part of a glass of red wine at about 6:30 PM. It often makes me sort of flushed; between that, 12 hours on my feet, 90 percent humidity and a sheen of bug spray, I looked and felt like an escaped mental patient. Still, everyone was as nice as pie and, who knows, now maybe we'll get invited some places. We have great leftovers too. The silver lining: salsa, chips, and vegetables already cut up into little bits.

This being my last blog post of the summer, I will go out with one more book-collecting note. This AM, while my company was sleeping in, I went out "for milk." Oh, and, uhm, I might swing by the auction too, I told the kids, quietly, away from the Whusband a/k/a BatEars.

Result, a half gallon of 2 percent and a box of kids' books from the 1940s. Alas, the library book sale season has ended for another year, and I am back to paying auction prices. Oh, and the Last House is chock-a-block with musty books from the basements and attics of my fellow Vermonters. I really have to stop buying books and plates, someone help me! But, this box, the box in question from today's auction, contained Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, a first edition, and I happen to know that it is my mother's favorite children's book. She's getting it for Christmas.

The great fun for me of an auction box lot is getting it home and prowling through it for treasures. This lot contained a few others, besides Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. Nothing with terribly great monetary value, although a few might get ten or twenty bucks on ebay on a good day. Some may head that direction. The great thing about them was, as usual, the covers and the illustrations. I think my favorites, on this basis, were two books about the "Teenie Weenies" by William Donahey. Until today, I knew nothing about these two-inch characters or their creator. Luckily, we all have Wikipedia now and here's some of what I learned:

William Donahey (19 October 1883 – 2 February 1970) was a U.S. cartoon artist and creator of the Teenie Weenies, a comic strip about two inch tall people living under a rosebush.[1][2] The strip appeared in the Chicago Tribune for over 50 years.[1][2] He drew the Teenie Weenies characters for a total of about 2100 strips. His work appeared in places all around the world.

The color illustrations were particularly fabulous. Does MOMA have this guy's stuff? they should.

Here ya go:











And now to bed. Goodbye, goodbye summer...

The Light in August

At last, a beautiful Saturday in this rainy summer and your hostess was fighting a summer cold. I did get out long enough to take out the trash. On the way to the barrel, I noticed how beautiful the light was in the leaves. So, here you go, it's all I got for today.

A good friend told me once that he thought, or someone said, that William Faulkner had the best titles of any novelist. Light in August, The Sound and the Fury; Go Down, Moses, Absalom Abasalom! Pretty good, aren't they? I don't think I have ever made it through one of Faulkner's novels but I am a champion reader of titles... I can't look at the Light in August and not think of Faulkner. I guess that's an achievement in itself (for him).