Visual Treats for Recent Peeps/Day 1- This Old Kitchen (designer unknown)
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This charming old kitchen reminds me of my childhood home. In my mind's eye, I can still clearly see the yellow-painted walls of my mother's kitchen which had two windows--one with a long wooden counter beneath it on which all the rolling of pastry dough was done, and the other under which was the double sink, drain-board, and a white rubber-coated rack for holding glasses, plates, silverware and such. If the person who had wash-up duty that evening could, the frying pan and a dark skillet of some sort were carefully stacked on top of all of the clean dishes and cups and saucers to avoid having to dry by hand with a cotton towel. This was a special place to grow up; it was light years before the avalanche of product catalogues, life-style magazines and HGTV shows later convinced some of my siblings and a lot of my friends that heaven on earth entailed a Viking 60-inch custom sealed burner range, French doors on a smudge-proof Energy-Star certified fridge, and a second dishwasher to use when the first dishwasher hadn't been emptied. It's not that my parents were unaware of the changing trends in kitchen design and upgrades because we did receive copies of Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, and Readers' Digest from my sister in Pensacola who liked decorating and fixing up her house on the air-force base. It's just that with so many kids to feed and clothe and get through grade school and into high school, the idea of calling in a carpenter or plumber to talk about fixing anything other than what was rotten or broken or leaking seemed strange and a little wasteful--as wasteful and unthoughtful as not remembering to mix the last of the ketchup with water to make it go just a little further.
Funny the things we remember about our families and about growing up. The memories triggered by an image gleaned from an online blog about place and sanctuary. Or triggered by the faint sound of a bicycle-bell, or the aroma of frying eggs and sizzling pork sausages, or the excited laughter of the neighborhood children on their way past my place--weekday afternoons between 3:30 pm and 4.
Enjoy the weekend, and life's fleeting beauty....
Sincerely,
Shane
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