Home School Observations

I came across Sewing Susan again this month as I reorganized my sewing supplies. This pack of needles, Sewing Susan, has been with me since I won them as a prize in the race car bumper game at Coney Island in 1962.

I hold Sewing Susan and think about its journey since the day I won it. It lived in my own sewing box in Forest Park, then moved with us to Greenhills. I took it to college with me. When I uprooted myself from Cincinnati and moved to Oregon in 1986, it came with me. In Oregon, Sewing Susan and I lived in four different homes.

Sewing Susan went with me when I uprooted myself from Oregon and moved to Japan in 1992. I carefully placed it in a box of items and mailed it to a friend in Oregon when I uprooted myself from Japan and married J in Sri Lanka in 1996. Sewing Susan waited patiently in the box in A’s attic until J and I settled down in Oregon in 1997. And it came with me as I uprooted the family from Oregon to return to Cincinnati to be with my mother at the last stages of her life in 2005.

Some of the needles in Sewing Susan remain. The needle threader is long gone. I have now progressed to self-threading needles. I will hand Sewing Susan down to N when she is a bit older.

That was quite a day in 1962. I remember what I was wearing, my new and current favorite short and blouse set, in pale blue and white narrow stripes.

I remember my favorite ride that day, too. The miniature roadway, with real gas engines and a gas pedal and a brake (and a metal guide rail on which the cars ran - but, hey, it looked like real driving to a seven year old!) I had only recently reached the minimum height requirements for that ride and was itching to get to ride it at last!

Why can I remember what I was wearing?

The line for the miniature cars was long and snaked back upon itself at least four times. We inched forward. I passed some of the time by looking at Sewing Susan. We inched forward some more. I busied myself picking out which car I would drive if I had a choice. I settled on a bright red car and hoped I would be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

We reached the last section of switchback and I counted off how many kids were in front of me. Seven. Then I began to try to figure out which color car would appear at the moment I reached the head of the line. I had it figured out down to either red or blue.

Three more kids in front of me now. The excitement mounts!

Suddenly I am horrified. I clutch Sewing Susan and begin to cry. Oh no! How embarrassing! I thought I was too old for this to happen.

I am at Coney Island with my friend M and her parents. M’s mom sees what happened and accompanies me to the nearby bathroom. She helps me get cleaned up as best she could, and kindly sits with me on a sunny bench and we wait for my clothes to dry.

I sadly take my place at the end of the long line. M has ridden the ride without me, but joins me in line for her second turn. M’s mom gives me a pep talk and tells me not to worry about it, it happens when seven-year-old children are excited.

It has remained near the top of the list of my “Most Embarrasing Moments” collection.

Sewing Susan Needle Book… $2.00 on eBay…

Memories for a lifetime…priceless

She gathers the shiny plastic shamrock necklace, the felt shamrock bow tie, the whimsical bobbing shamrock head bands, and places them carefully in the green storage box decorated with pot-o-golds. “Will they still believe in leprechauns the next time I open this box?” she wonders.

The enormity of the question astounds her. The real question is whether her two children, aged 6 and 8, will still be captive by the magic of childhood, still believers in the impossible. The leprechauns visited last night, and the morning magic was good.

She remembers Cory, another lab technician at the last lab she worked at in Oregon. He was still bitter. Bitter at his parents for fabricating the story of Santa Claus. He was barely past twenty, and very vocal about his bitterness whenever the topic materialized. “I will never forgive my parents for that,” he stated. “They lied to me. Plain and simple.”

She had never met anyone bitter like that over such childhood fantasies, created by adults to keep the imaginations of children alive. She began to worry. What will the reaction of her own children be? How will they find out? When?

She remembers the moment when she learned the truth about Santa. It was an accident. It was July, 1960, and she was sitting on her bed next to her mother. “You are growing up so fast, Dede,” her mother said. “And you are so smart, too! How did you figure out that Mom and Dad buy all the Santa presents every year?”

Dede’s mouth dropped open and tears immediately welled in both eyes. “What! There is no Santa Claus? I didn’t know, Mom! Why did you tell me? You ruined my Christmas! I want to believe, I want to believe! But it is too late. The magic is gone now! I could have had one more good Christmas!”

She remembers falling on the bed and crying. Mom apologized, but there was no consoling Dede. She cried herself to sleep that night.

When her children ask her such things as, “Mom, is Santa Claus real?” she has not wavered in her response. “What do you think?” is the standard reply, and the children always answer, “Yes!” and return to whatever they were doing before the doubts crept in.

“They’ll never hear it from me,” she thinks to herself. They will have to figure it out on their own. She seals the St. Patrick’s Day box and places it high up on the shelf in a garage cabinet.

Tags: leprechaun, St. Patrick’s Day, Santa, Santa Claus, crying, bitter, magic, childhood, shamrock

Our family still loves to tell the stories. Mom was in charge of planning our annual summer vacation. After the first fiasco, someone should have taken that job away from her.

It was 1962. My younger brother Eric was in diapers. Cloth diapers. My dad drove the white station wagon. Our destination: Toledo, Ohio. “Why are you going to Toledo? You must have relatives there?” the mothers of my playmates asked when I told them where we were going on our first trip. “My mom says it is a nice town on the lake.”

I was turning seven that summer. It felt like a very long drive in that station wagon. We stopped often, for gas, for diaper changes, for breakfast, for lunch. With every stop my father became less patient with the trip.

“Do we have a reservation at a hotel?” I heard him ask my mom. “No, dear, I thought we would just look around and see what we liked.”

We neared Toledo. The air was thick with tension. “Which way do we turn?” shouted my father. “I don’t know, dear, whatever you think is best,” came the reply. We started the first turn in our circuitous ramblings. The sky was grey from pollution, the buildings sooty concrete and rusted metal. We seemed to be lost in the industrial part of town.

“Find us the cottages on the lake!” barked my father. My mom continued to stare blankly at the road map.

“I give up, we’re going back home!” With that, Dad jerked the steering wheel, did a U-turn, and headed the car back toward Cincinnati. I began whimpering in the back seat. “I want to have a vacation, Daddy, don’t go back!” I pleaded.

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The Wednesday Tea Ladies

When I was a young child I always looked forward to arriving home from school on Wednesdays. I knew my mom and her friends would be sitting at the dining room table sipping tea, eating toast and jam, and laughing. I called them the tea ladies. I did not always understand the topic of conversation, but I was happy to be invited to join the table.

“How long have they been sitting here drinking tea?” I would wonder to myself. I imagined the tea parties lasted the entire length of my school day. I was so jealous of their freedom, so longingly looked forward to being an adult so I could sit around all day with my friends and drink tea.

My favorite tea lady was Mrs. Powell. She would always make everyone laugh, and then she would add her boisterous guffaws over top of my mother’s dainty giggles. She was from London, and knew just how to prepare a “cuppa” any nine-yr-old child would love. I grew to love milk in my tea, and have been drinking it the British way ever since! Of course there was an ample amount of sugar in that child’s tea, and only a modicum of black tea, but that weekly sweet milky treat was something I treasured.

Mrs. Muse was from Boston and she and my mother drank their tea black, but with some sugar. I always appreciated the fact that I was invited to join the tea party and that Mrs. Powell and I were drinking tea the British way. It made me feel so important.

I miss the Wednesday Tea Ladies. I think of them often as I pour myself a “cuppa.”

Tags: tea