Sisterhood of the Traveling Dress

My in-laws were hoarders. Not like you see on television, it’s hard to imagine anyone having been that extreme, but they collected stuff! After my father-in-law passed away, my mother-in-law has begun to deaccession herself of much of the junk. A lot of it was my father-in-laws so it was easier for her to get rid of.

She had saved her kids clothes, at least a lot of it, and now it seemed an appropriate time to get rid of it, now that her kids were over 40 and 50 years old! I have no idea how much of it went to the church or the Salvation Army, but some of it was sent to my daughter-in-law who was the only one in my family who had a little girl to wear what she had saved. I remember getting some sweaters for my girls earlier that had moth holes in them, and were of a style long forgotten, but I didn’t know what went to California to my kids.

This picture was sent to me last week and it’s my granddaughter Lena in my wife’s original dress. The photo of Lena was taken in April, 2012 and the photograph of my wife was taken in July 1960.
That’s 52 years later!!!

Buried Dreams

When I was a kid, I guess about 13 or maybe even 14, I met a girl I liked. She was sort of cute, and I have fond memories of our sitting around in her basement playroom dancing and necking a bit. It wasn’t love, maybe just a first experience. There was no heavy sexual stuff involved and her parents made it perfectly clear that I was not to hang around too much. Her father was mean but her mother was “hot”. This was not anything I had even run into before, a hot mom, a yummy mummy. I liked her better than the daughter.

In truth, I never saw either of them again after our brief experiences together, maybe a month at most and never really thought about again it until yesterday.

Yesterday, reading on line through some obituaries, I discovered her mother had died. Given my age, it was not a shock, but it brought back a bunch of sweet kid memories, and warm nostalgic feelings. Reading through the entire obituary, I soon discovered that her Mom had died after her daughter. My old girl friend was already dead!

This is a totally depressing thought. I had reached the time, as I have so often said, that many of my old friends have already passed.

That sweet summertime moment, that first blush of spring, the poetic thoughts of young love have died and are buried in some Jewish cemetery somewhere in Baltimore, Maryland.

There should be a fitting Leonard Cohen song to follow this…….

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Aution Questions

I am continually confused by post auction questions and comments. They usually surface during the first two weeks after our annual auction, although many happen on the lead up. Some of the questions and comments include:

I just brought the painting home (I already bid on and paid for of course) and it just doesn’t match the living room.

Oh, the Rembrandt’s only a print (etching)?

Do you remember the big red painting in Studio three, the one with the barn?  (One of 1287 art objects for sale)

Do you know where my cousin Ernie’s painting is?

There are way too many photographs included in this auction. (note: don’t buy one)

Is this one an original? (No, the other one is.)

How much did the little blue panting sell for? (Same kind of answer, of the 1287 pieces I will not only know the selling price, but I’ll not know which one was the little blue one).

Which one is the best investment? (mine!)

What will it sell for? (How the hell do I know?)

If I buy it will I get a tax receipt? (NO!!, you’re buying something!!!)

Burma-Shave

Way back in 1925 young Allan Odell pitched this great sales idea to his father, Clinton. Use small, wooden roadside signs to pitch their product, Burma-Shave, a brushless shaving cream. Dad wasn't wild about the idea but eventually gave Allan $200 to give it a try.
It didn't take long for sales to soar. Soon Allan and his brother Leonard were putting up signs all over the place.

At first the signs were pure sales pitch but as the years passed they found their sense of humor.

At their height of popularity there were 7,000 Burma-Shave signs stretching across America. The familiar white on red signs, grouped by four, fives and sixes, became part of a family trip . You'd read first one, then another, anticipating the punch line on number five and the familiar Burma-Shave on the sixth.

The signs cheered us during the Depression and the dark days of World War II. But things began to change in the late Fifties. Cars got faster and superhighways got built to accommodate them. The fun little signs were being replaced by huge, unsightly billboards.
1963 was the last year for new Burma Shave signs. There were no more red and white nuggets of roadside wisdom.

As befits such an important part of American culture, one set is preserved by the Smithsonian Institution. It reads:
Shaving brushes
You'll soon see 'em
On a shelf
In some museum
Burma-Shave
Here are a few examples:

His cheek
Was rough
His chick vamoosed
And now she won't
Come home to roost
Burma-Shave

The place to pass
On curves
You know
Is only at
A beauty show
Burma-Shave

On curves ahead
Remember, sonny
That rabbit's foot
Didn't save
The bunny
Burma-Shave

Twinkle, twinkle
One-eyed car
We all wonder
WHERE you are
Burma-Shave 

These signs
We gladly
Dedicate
To men who've had
No date of late
Burma-Shave

A guy
Who drives
A car wide open
Is not thinkin'
He's just hopin'
Burma-Shave 

A whiskery kiss
For the one
You adore
May not make her mad
But her face will be sore
Burma-Shave

His brush is gone
So what'll we do
Said Mike Robe I
To Mike Robe II
Burma-Shave

If your peach
Keeps out
Of reach
Better practice
What we preach
Burma-Shave

When Super-shaved
Remember, pard
You'll still get slapped
But not so hard
Burma-Shave

Burma-Shave
Was such a boom
They passed
The bride
And kissed the groom

To kiss
A mug
That's like a cactus
Takes more nerve
Than it does practice
Burma-Shave

The whale
Put Jonah
Down the hatch
But coughed him up
Because he scratched
Burma-Shave

Violets are blue
Roses are pink
On graves
Of those
Who drive and drink
Burma-Shave 

Candidate says
Campaign
Confusing
Babies kiss me
Since I've been using
Burma-Shave

My job is
Keeping faces clean
And nobody knows
De stubble
I've seen
Burma-Shave 

Doesn't
Kiss you
Like she useter?
Perhaps she's seen
A smoother rooster!!
Burma-Shave

No use
Knowing
How to pick 'em
If your half-shaved Whiskers stick 'em
Burma-Shave

He tried
To cross
As fast train neared
Death didn't draft him
He volunteered
Burma-Shave

Her chariot
Raced 80 per
They hauled away
What had
Ben Her
Burma-Shave

She will Flood your face
With kisses
'Cause you smell
So darn delicious
Burma-Shave

I had to Google heart attack symptoms just in case I was having one

On Monday I was suddenly hit with a terrible pain in my right arm while sitting at my computer in my office. The pain went from the right shoulder to the elbow and stopped me from moving my arm in any upward movement. I was working away, and trying to get my arm right and it was awful.

There was a certain sense of familiarity with it but not enough to trigger a memory, at least not at that time.
My first thought was the probability of a heart attack, and I needed some information. I did not want it to be a heart attack (like who would?)
I was on the phone at that time and I decided that while I was talking I would Google heart attack symptoms just in case this was one. It was unclear, but it seemed mostly  that the left arm would have been problematic but the right  was safe enough. My wife had provided me with a bottle of low dose aspirin as a heart attack preventative, and it seemed like a good time to take one.
I had no idea where they were and for sure they were not with me. That pain became unbearable, but I managed to complete my work and get my coat on. I had to go downtown to pick up some paintings a little later, so I decided to go home and get some medicine and see what I could do.
I arrived at home, driving with my left hand as I couldn’t really use my right hand very well. In the house, I found muscle relaxers which I had for my earlier back problem and after much looking, found the aspirins. I took everything and continued to do so every four hours. I went to bed for a while, and read, and it began to feel better. I spoke to my wife who called in to hear messages and found me at home and I scared her to death. She wanted to come home and I wanted to go out. As things got better I left the house and got gas for the car and went out to lunch. I called her back and assured her it was no heart attack and I was fine and not home.
I went downtown and recovered the paintings and returned to the office. After a bit, I felt lousy so I went home again about 4:00.
I finally realized the pain was familiar, and it related to a rotator cuff accident I had a year and a half ago when I fell on the ice. It had returned although I seemed to be doing nothing more than typing.

After explaining this to my wife  she reminded me I had been mowing our lawn on Sunday, and out wonderful battery run electric motor weighs 76 pounds, and it’s like dragging a bucket of stones around. That was what caused the problem, and the typing must have just hit the muscle in the right place.
This morning, after breakfast, the pain simply disappeared? Who knows? I think the peanut butter I had at breakfast was the cure!

Girlfriends

On Saturday evening at the auction I was asked if I had put my name on two seats because there were pieces of paper with my name reserving these chairs.

“Yes, these are mine, they have my name on them”, as if this weren’t obvious enough.

But there was another name on another chair next to mine. “Yes, I reserved this one as well”

“Who is this one for”?

“It’s for my girlfriend”, I replied.

“Your girlfriend”?

“Yes, my girlfriend”.

“You are sitting here with your wife and your girlfriend”?

“Yes. My wife and my girlfriend”.

“Doesn’t your wife mind this situation”?

“No, she thinks it’s her girlfriend”.

There were no more questions……

Auction Report

Rembrandt etching- 1641

I’m still coming down from last night’s auction. It was fantastic, and as usual, I learn things every time.
I know instinctively that things sell by region. Some things that I can sell could not be sold in the Toronto market and vice versa. There are of course favorites everywhere.
Among my long held concerns is the lack of understanding of three dimensional art, sculpture, in any region. We have forgotten how to look at work unless it’s flat. Sculpture classes in most places have disappeared, as we become a flat world. As well, people have no place to put sculpture, even when they do. They simply don’t recognise the space. It was harder to sell it last night and while we did sell a few pieces, our three passes of the night were three dimensional ones.
Old favorites sold well, although I was a bit disturbed by lower prices in some cases.
My secondary market pieces are doing well and we have developed an audience for “old stuff”. I’ve tried very hard since my arrival here 13 years ago to develop donor consciences that we will be happy to recycle old art. This year one of my own pieces was returned and sold again. It sold six years ago and it sold last night. We have tried to emphasize to downsizing families that we are a great place to “dispose “ of art work you no longer have room to store or a family that wants it.
The “star” of this group was the Rembrandt etching, a 1641 piece with a bit of deterioration to two corners, but easily restorable if the buyer would like it done. I took it from a plastic sleeve and had it framed. I checked to feel the ink to make sure it was an etching and not a clever digital copy. The paper was so fragile that I wanted to inflict as little damage as possible. While I cannot guarantee it was printed by Rembrandt himself, as prints were pulled from these plate for some years t come, it clearly was very old, and the correct size. A 19th century copy was made at a slightly larger size.
The bidding for this last piece of the night was intense. Because of great newspaper publicity, we had a large crowd who all waited for this last piece to be sold. The auctioneer, our favorite and well worth the cost of admission alone, asked me to come up and speak about the Rembrandt. I was prepared, having spoken to so many people about it for a few months, that it was fun to tell my story. I bid one dollar to get it started, this gave a funny opening for the auctioneer.
The tension grew with the price and in the end it was a battle of words and money, a battle between the last two bidders. I knew both bidders and had spoken to both of them about the piece. It was fun to watch for everyone. The final bid was $11,000.
Most of us were delighted, given our concerns. A few were surprised it went so low. People never agree on these things. We had been guessing about what we thought it would do and this exceeded all our expectations.
It will take a week or two to get final numbers on the 1300 pieces of art sold by silent and live auction as well as hundreds of pieces of pottery “seconds” we sell as well. I know this; it was one hell of a night!

added thought: I just remembered, there was a new wrinkle in last night's auction,, I-Phones! People were seen looking up values etc. on their cell phones etc. as the night wore on. This is the first year I have seen this happen. It is a changing world.

The 69 cent solution.......

I got a 6 place, 3 prong wall socket adapter that fits into a two place plug, and I bought it at the dollar store.

I put it into the wall, and went to put the plugs in and lo and behold the two prong plugs don’t fit.

I thought, “Oh my, now I need two prong adapters for the plugs so they will fit into the three prong socket”.

I went to the dollar store but there were none available. I know I used to buy them at Home Depot or someplace for about $.69 a piece a long time ago, so I figured I’d go to the hardware store when I had a chance, and pick a few of them up.

When I arrived at the hardware store, after looking around for a while, I found a “guy”. I asked him, with a big smile on my face, about the availability of these items. I was watching him as he very gradually started to grin. I said, “You know, I used to buy these all the time for about $.69, about 20 years ago or so” and his grin widened.

I smiled and said, as the light bulb above my head went off, “They’re illegal now, right?”

He smiled, and was glad I had seen the truth, and he said, “Yep!”

Up the creek without our paddles......

We determined it was time. Our auction paddles, ordered about 7 years ago, had seen better days. While they still of course worked, their numbers had dwindled. It would be nice, even for a small auction, to get new paddles with the hopes that people wouldn’t take them home of trash them as they had in the past.

An auction paddle always makes it seem more official when you bid. You have a real number and an official paddle to stretch in the air. It encourages one to bid, or at least entitles you to do it.
Ours were on their way out and I took the time to look up the supplier, the Kiefer Company in Fergus Falls, MN. This time we decided to go with special printing to include our logo on the paddle itself, and we ordered 200 new ones.

When they were delivered I remembered they were put in my office in a large box, and because they were in the way, someone moved them into storage. I showed them to our Business Manager and we were both pleased. That is, pleased until last week because we couldn’t find them!

Both of us were sure someone, not us, had put them away.

Several staff members, including me, went through the building, in every possible closet and box, trying to find our new paddles, to no avail. Finally, in desperation, and since no one but the two of us had seen them, I called Minnesota and asked the company when they had been delivered. After a brief period of computer shuffling, the answer came; they had shipped them three days before our call! They had not yet been delivered!

I know that our Business Manager and I had seen the “proofs” of the paddle on line in order to approve the printing, but we were just so sure………

and now from the historically white Presbyterian church.......

photo from Bethel AME church where she was supposed to be

In my mother-in-laws small New Jersey town, there seem to be two historically black churches, the AME (African Methodist Episcopal) and the Union Baptist. My mother-in-laws church had a day planned with a joint service with the AME Church last Sunday, at about 11:00 am. There was to be a meeting of some kind (information not passed on to me) in the town square before the service, and both congregations would walk to the AME Church together.

My mother-in-law is getting up there in years, and since she had sung in the choir in the early morning service at her church, decided she would wait at home, skip the public meeting in the square, and meet everyone at the AME Church.

She got to the church at about 11:00 am and waited inside for her friends from the church to arrive. The service was very loud, and had a drummer involved. She was a bit uncomfortable as she soon realized that her friends had not arrived, it was too loud for her and she was the only white person in the room!

A woman sitting behind her noticed her uneasiness and asked her if she could help. My mother-in-law explained the whole story to the woman who explained to her that she had gone to the Union Baptist Church instead of the AME. There was no way she could easily slip out.

The minister decided to have the guests stand and introduce themselves and let everyone know where they’ve come from. When it got to my mother-in-law, she explained that she must have gone to the “wrong” church! The minister and the congregation all explained that they were the “right” church to go to, and it seems God had declared that she be there.

After the early service and before the guest minister arrived, many congregants came by to welcome her to the “right” church. She had to go up the front and make a sizable donation to the church of course, and stay as long as she could. She finally got out before the guest minister started and she went home.

I don’t believe she has yet told her minister what happened.

The Dishwasher Saga continues, and ends, we hope.

A couple of days ago I wrote the first episode of the dishwasher saga:

My new dishwasher had a problem. Something had burned and as it turned out several things had burned on the bottom in error. One was a pair of chopsticks that I placed flat on a top shelf. These were wood chopsticks, a pair that came with my carry out lunch and I was going to save. The truth is we have hundreds of pairs so it was stupid to try and save them anyway and I could use them in the garden or somewhere eventually as short sticks. The other and much more important one was the round plastic disk that covers the rinse agent holder, an article that may have no real reason for being, and could be saved if the manufacturers would hang it as most car manufacturers do with the gas tank lids.
This little press in place lid had about a 2” diameter and looks a little like a diaphragm with a large rubber ring around one side. In this day and age of the pill, a diaphragm may only be a descriptor if you are over 50. However, it fell out of its hiding place next to the soap dispenser and went down into the bottom where the heat element lives. It burned and warped and is no good no more to no one.
I called Sears repair and asked if they would send out a new one and they told me that I had to have a technician come out to inspect in order to assess the damage. This would mean missing half a day of work for my wife or me and that seemed stupid. I decided to just order one. I mean, said I, “How much could the little thing cost?” These are always the famous last words before the fall of everything holy.
I called parts and a very nice woman commiserated with me, and told me everyone loses these and it’s very common. She herself had lost one. I gave her the model number and off she went.
She came back and explained she was having a problem but I should hold.
The problem was my model did not have such a part listed, as its part of a multi hundred dollar dispensing system. However, she figured they were mainly the same for all models and she did her best to measure and figures she will send me a different model one and it should fit.
She has done a good job and hopefully it will work. The $2 part costs $24 and shipping is $8.95. I will wait and see if it works. If it does not, I will call the technician back and demand service. They may argue in the end that we loosened it and didn‘t tighten it back up and therefore, technically, it is not a system fault, and they will be correct but I won’t admit that as I have never used the thing. It will cost at least one visit if not two, where the part gets ordered, delivered to the technician, and he come back to install it.
The other option is to go to the store and steal the thing from a floor model. No one ever watches the big appliances for theft of a little part; they may stop you if you steal the whole machine.
I have written before about the removal of a button from a coat or a shoelace from shoes and how you can find these items on clearance sale late in the season waiting for you who has secreted the missing part at home. I have never condoned such behavior, just mentioned it in passing.
The upshot was, the replacement part does not fit! I went to Sears to return it and steal a new one, but they had no model there to steal it from. The salesperson tried to help but to no avail, it would fit the models on the floor, but not mine. Also, the store does not return these things and it must be sent back using an 800 number. You can buy anything 24/7 but you can’t return parts except during business hours.
I went to a different Sears store on Friday evening and was unable to find the part on their machines as well but as luck would have it, the upper left hand track fell off the dishwasher on Friday morning so now I needed the track replaced as well as the new part! The salesperson at Sears was no help with either the part or the track although she tried and I had nothing to steal!
On Saturday, my neighbor suggested we call the original salesman and ask him the questions. He suggested that we come in and he would help us. We went in, and as he had time to try, he figured out how to replace the track and understood the problem. He had additional rinse agent plugs as well, but they didn’t fit because of the same problem we encountered. He thought a while and realized that the Kitchenaid machine was a new model, and because it’s built by Whirlpool, he looked on a new model Whirlpool machine and found the part, and he stole it himself and gave it to us! He was a great help and all seems well with the dish washer as of now, and I will attempt for a part return on Monday.
When my washer and dryer die, as they surely will be doing soon, I will go back to the same salesman who was so helpful in restoring my happy home life.