Today’s MBOB is a repeat: one of my personal favorites.
—————————————————————————–
Gifts for our mothers on Mother’s Day–a rite of spring in the classrooms of the 1950s.
I hated it because I wasn’t good with dainty things and had no patience for tiny handwork. The worst of all was in third grade when each girl in the class was given a square piece of linen to be handstitched around the edge with tiny stitches to create “a lovely handkerchief.”
The second worst was the year we were driven through the process of creating hand-twisted paper flowers: white lilies with green sprout-leaves along the side. Mine were all grubby because we often worked on them right after recess. Farm girls made use of
recess; we did not stand around displaying new socks or shoes or dresses, so recess remainders were transferred from my hands to the paper flowers as I worked hard on them, and when I gave them to Mom the Friday before Mother’s Day, the corners of her mouth twitched a bit.
I knew she had seen right away how smudged they were, but she suppressed the urge to laugh and just said quietly, “How about if we put them in the china closet?” They sure looked nice laying there…safely behind the pretty glass where folks who might come for coffee could see but not touch. (more…)