Tag: memories

Shoe Shine Girl

When we lived in South Carolina (the home where my push puppet lion disappeared!), we had both a living room, with the new brown sofa and chair, and a den/dining room, with the old brown sofa and chair. My mother was definitely always about the earth tones (coppertone kitchen appliances, remember). In the mornings, I would take my bowl of Cocoa Puffs and creep into the dark den to sit on the arm of the old brown chair and stare at the wall. I liked silence and dark when I awoke. In a previous existence, I may have been a mole.

The particular den wall I stared at, in the light from the kitchen, was my mother’s Wall of Your Father Is Pretty Damn Amazing. His most recent military award certificates or commendations were framed and hung there, along with a painting or two (of his), and this.

Someone did this caricature of my father giving a second lieutenant hell for his unshined combat boots. If you know anything about military rank, you know that the second lieutenant is an officer who outranked my father, an enlisted man. But a second lieutenant is the lowest of the low; I can still remember the saying that the most dangerous thing in the Army is a second lieutenant with a map and a compass. In any case, rank isn’t everything, and my father’s age and experience as a (at that time) first sergeant would have meant the inexperienced second lieutenant would do well to take the scolding. And to polish those boots.

Though my father’s hair was never this bright a red in my memory, the caricaturist for sure got one thing right. His uniform was always inspection-ready. One of my “chores” as a little girl was to put my father’s boots on a chair one at a time, put both my hands down inside the boot, and hold it still with all my strength while he buffed a flawless shine on it using one of my mother’s discarded stockings. There were things we did together that were more fun–he taught me how to cast with a rod and reel, how to drive, how to make cole slaw, for example–but the smell of shoe polish still makes me happy as I remember this particular father/daughter activity.

Button Sunday

I launched Button Sundays in September 2006 after getting an e-mail full of button photos from Denece. I don’t know if I’ve missed a Sunday since. I’m not about to go back through the archives to check, since I recently did that to replace or delete a lot of broken links, as well as LJ user names and other LJ-specific code that didn’t migrate to the new blog. Since the button launch almost five years ago, I’ve been given buttons from many of you (thanks!), searched the Internet for buttons to go with themes, events, or dates, and sometimes created buttons because I couldn’t find what I wanted.

My future plan for Button Sundays is to photograph and share buttons from my personal collection, which began when Lynne and I started collecting them as ‘tweens. If I can remember where I got the buttons, or from whom, I may include the details. Sometimes my memory will no doubt be inaccurate; we’ll call that “memoir,” which is closely related to “fiction.”

Buttons have been around since the late 1800s, when they were used mostly for political campaigns. I’ll begin with some of my political buttons related to the state of Alabama. Keep in mind, now and in the future, that ownership of a campaign or promotional button does not indicate my endorsement of a person or product. =)


The two little buttons in the bottom right corner were my parents’. They campaigned across the state in 1978 with Jamie “Red” Etheridge when he was running for Lieutenant Governor of Alabama. My father probably met him through work they did together on a regional planning council. I don’t think Etheridge won that election. The most recent information I could find on him indicates he’s a trustee at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama.

Jere Beasley was Alabama’s Lieutenant Governor when Governor George Wallace suffered an assassination attempt in his presidential race of 1972. Beasley became acting governor when Wallace had to be out of state for an extended period because of his surgery and recovery. This button comes from his unsuccessful 1978 gubernatorial campaign. The Beasley Belle buttons were given to campaign volunteers. My mother was active in his campaign and made sure I got one of these after I made phone calls on his behalf.

Emory Folmar was a mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, and an unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate (losing to George Wallace in Wallace’s fourth term in 1982). Various controversies surrounded Folmar (including the banning of rock and roll concerts in Montgomery!). Lt. Governor George McMillan lost to Wallace in the Democratic primary during that same election season.

The “Brewer Full Time” button was a slam against Albert Brewer’s 1972 gubernatorial opponent George Wallace, who was often out of the state campaigning for president. Brewer was Lt. Governor under Lurleen B. Wallace, wife of George Wallace. During Wallace’s first term as governor, term limitations allowed a governor only one consecutive term. Wallace immediately began trying to change that, and when he hadn’t been successful nearing the end of his term, he persuaded his wife to run for the governor’s office. Her victory enabled him to continue to control the office while working to change the law. During part of Mrs. Wallace’s term, she was ill and out of the state for enough consecutive days for Brewer to become acting governor. Later, when she died, Brewer finished her term. In spite of his efforts to build a coalition between disenfranchised voters (blacks and poor whites), Brewer lost to Wallace, who had also won his battle to allow governors consecutive terms.

The Wallace buttons are from different campaigns, the one with his photo being the oldest. I found it in my mother’s sewing box. Even had they been living in the state during his early years in office, my parents’ views on civil rights would not allow them to support Wallace’s campaign promises of continued segregation (in later years, he recanted those views and apologized). In all, Wallace was governor of Alabama for four terms over three decades, and he ran for president four times.


Peyton Cochrane has been the Tax Collector of Tuscaloosa County for over twenty years. This button might have been from his first campaign. It’s possible from research his father or grandfather shared with my mother that we are very distantly related. Cochrane, especially with the final “e,” was not a common name in North Alabama.

Endorsed by the Alabama Tea Party Express, Lynn Greer is a current member of the State of Alabama House of Representatives, where he initially served as a Democrat, and later, a Republican. This button is probably from his 1980 campaign for Public Service Commissioner.

Photo Friday, No. 252

Current Photo Friday theme: Wilderness

I submit the above photo from the wilderness of the U.S. Southeast for this week’s challenge not because it has any photographic merit at all. It doesn’t. If you want to see stunning photographs taken from some of the most breathtaking locations worldwide by accomplished photographers, I advise you to click on the link above that will take you to the Photo Friday site. Nothing I have in digital format or in my photo archives can compare to their work.

Instead, what I’m showing you here is one of the earliest photos I ever shot, maybe with my mother’s old Brownie–some camera that she allowed me to take to a Bible camp where my parents sent me one summer.

It’s one of a group of really bad photos I have, but it doesn’t matter that they’re bad. They help me remember a week when I made a friend named Julie, with whom I corresponded for years after we left camp. She helped me understand how much fun it could be to write and receive letters in the mail, no matter how silly the conversations of ‘tweens might have been.

They help me remember that I got my first kiss–from a boy named Marshall–NO TONGUES!–one night next to the lake. He also gave me my first experience of a boy who’ll tell a girl a lie to impress her. (His was about his experience playing Oliver in the theater. I’m sure he played Oliver in some theater, but I suspect it wasn’t on Broadway, as I was led to believe.)

They help me remember lying on the ground at night, staring at a breathtaking sky so full of stars that I still expect to see it whenever I look up. Light pollution in the nation’s fourth largest city doesn’t allow that; still, the sight is locked in my brain.

They help me remember how mean kids can be to one another when they’re forced into bizarre situations like camp. If we are honest when we point fingers at other people’s bad behavior, we admit there’s a kernel of that in all of us–when we so desperately want to belong that someone has to be made an outsider. If we can’t admit and recognize this, we can’t correct our behavior.

So it’s not a great photo–but it’s a great picture.

30 Days of Creativity, Day 21

Okay, seriously, I have blogged about my push puppet lion that was lost or stolen from me when I was ten at least five times, beginning in 2005 and as recently as when I saw Toy Story 3. It’s silly to mourn a lost toy so much, I know, but there you have it. People get attached to things, and I loved Linus. I have long searched for one like him on eBay and other Internet stores, but they were all painted or just weren’t right. Then the other day in Michael’s, I found this for 99 cents:


Unpainted, a little less noble than my childhood lion, and with nothing near the mane my lion had, plus no tail tuft. Still, he had potential. And he was 99 cents!


This morning, I removed the inadequate mane and stained him with some extra stain I found in the garage.

Then I found some trim that Lynne once used on pillows my late friend Jeff commissioned her to sew. I took the trim apart, broke out the hot glue gun, tweezers, and toothpicks, and…


A new version of Linus! Linus II can never replace what I lost, but he doesn’t have to. He just has to be his own adorable self.

30 Days of Creativity 2011, Day 9

The five senses are a vital part of a writer’s bag of tricks when transporting readers to an imaginary world. If you want to know how powerful a hold your senses have on you, take a page from Keri Smith’s This Is Not a Book. Or two pages, to be exact:

I randomly picked five things I had at hand to see what the sense of them might evoke.

Scent. A bottle of Chanel N° 5. Though I no longer enjoy perfume as much as I once did, this remains my favorite of them all. It’s a classic. I have received Chanel N° 5 twice in my life. The first bottle was from a man who broke my heart with lies. I have long ago forgiven the damage, but in my memory, he has no room lined with affection or colored by good times. I rarely reminisce about him to others. If I think of him, it’s most often with disappointment in myself for being gullible. This bottle is the second I was given, by a man who was my friend. He also broke my heart. I never forgave him because there was nothing to forgive. He was ill when he said and did cruel things. This perfume is seventeen years old. He has been dead sixteen years. I think of him with love and compassion. I tell stories about him, and even the sad ones remind me how deeply our friendship ran. The perfume no longer smells the way it should. Life doesn’t always treat us the way it should. But some things are better held close than others.

Sound. A bell, on a cord, with a plaid ribbon. This bell is the sound of Christmas to me. Throughout my life, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Christmas. When I was given the chance to write a Christmas romance by Kensington, I muttered to Tim, “I hate Christmas,” and he said, “There’s your first line.” I still don’t embrace the holiday with the fervor of many people I know, but it was certain friends’ love for the season that finally made me surrender and make the best of it. One of those friends is Lynne, and probably twenty years ago, she made bells for a few of us to wear at one of her Christmas parties. Every year that I’m in Houston, we spend either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day out at Green Acres with Lynne and her family, and I always wear this. I suppose when it comes to time with friends, peace on earth, or pictures of snowy landscapes, I say, “More Christmas bell!”

Sight. Gold wedding band. This is the wedding band my father gave my mother when they married in 1947. It did have a pattern on it, but those lines were worn smooth many years ago. When I was growing up, she never took off this ring. Even when she had surgery, she made them tape it rather than remove it. When my father came back from one of his overseas tours, he brought her a new diamond and wedding band from Japan. She wore that set sometimes, but sooner or later, this ring always returned to her finger. Same thing a few years later, when she picked out a platinum solitaire and band. She wore it most of the time, but now and then went back to this one. Ultimately, she gave the other sets away to children or grandchildren, but this one stayed with her until she died, even if she didn’t always wear it after my father died. She made me promise that no jewelry would be buried with her. I’m glad she insisted on that, because I don’t think anything that belonged to either of my parents holds as much value to me as this ring. If I close my eyes and see her hands sewing, cooking, gesturing as she told a story, lighting a cigarette, opening a purse, resting on my father’s shoulder, holding a grandchild–the ring is always there.

Taste. I chose these jelly beans made by SweeTarts not because they’re a favorite of mine, but because every time I see them, I go right back to being a young teen again. The Susans (there were two), Lynne, and I would buy those ginormous SweeTarts and hold them in our mouths as long as we could without biting them. They were as tart as their name, and eventually, the inside of my cheek would feel raw from them, or the sugar would make me choke. But thinking about those sensations makes me remember sitting by a swimming pool, or lying out in the yard slathered in baby oil mixed with iodine, trying to get a tan, then running through sprinklers to get cool. SweeTarts are hot days, giggling girls, newly mown grass, chlorine, and drawing up our mouths from that sweet and sour combination.

Touch. It’s been said that no person can have a good day in uncomfortable shoes. These Barbie shoes represent the mystery that is fashion to me: How can women wear the crazy shoes they choose? Then again, I remember my first pair of high heels. My first pair of platform shoes. My most expensive pair of heels. The shoes that I squeezed my feet into for too many years before I decided that nothing was worth being that uncomfortable. However, though I haven’t worn heels since the 1980s, I still understand the way even the most unfashionable of us (me!) reconsider and think that the pinch, the rub, the ache, the risk, the strain, just might be worth it for that OMG-gorgeous-pair-of-shoes-at-Nordstrom. ON SALE!