Yes, Virginia, There Really Was a Piggy at the Piggy Park

I found it---proof that there was a piggy at the Piggy Park for our kids to ride, not that my children made a habit of that at the age they were in this picture. I snapped this photo at a little Piggy Park Reunion we had many years ago. This is how Clayton Playground became known as the Piggy Park, at least to the BVG's and the BVGO's. This little piece of history from our children's lives is now preserved for the future, thanks to my scanner and this blog.

The piggy may be gone, but it's not forgotten.

FIGs: Doing Life Together

This past Saturday was the annual Fox Island Garage Sale. Our friends John and Laurie live on the island, and each September they invite a group of us to meet at their house at 8:45 for coffee, then by 9 A.M. we scatter in our own cars and scour the island for the best bargains. Besides garage sales set up at private homes all over the island, many residents bring their wares to the property around the fire station and the Fox Island Historical Museum and even more to the Fox Island Community Center. Shortly after noon we meet back at John and Laurie's, enjoy a potluck lunch, and then it's time for The Big Reveal. We open the backs of our cars and display our treasures. Whoever spends the most or gets the most incredible bargains is declared the Shopper of the Year. I was thrilled to win last year, when I among other things I picked up the perfect crib to have for our grandchildren.

I only held the title for one year. Even I didn't vote for myself this year. The two young granddaughters of some friends won this year. Not only did they perfect their skills at bargaining, I was amazed by the number of free items they received from generous sellers. When I was voting for them I noted, "I've gone to the Fox Island Garage Sale for years, and no one has ever given me anything for free!" Their grandfather--and good friend of ours--piped up, "That's because you aren't cute like they are!" Enough said on that subject.

Fox Island is a beautiful place. We have met some beautiful people there through the annual garage sale. Case in point: the woman whose crib I bought last year at her beautiful home. I also bought some clothes there for my grandsons, so that was one place I wanted to return. It was fun to see that young mother again, and this year I got to meet her two close friends who were doing the sale together. A delightful friend of hers was manning the cash box, and the third young woman was walking around with her baby in a front pack. The three of them were laughing together, talking back and forth, and it was quite obvious to me that they had a special closeness between them, something akin to the BVGs..

As I went to pay for my new treasures, I asked the woman at the cash box, "Are you the one who sold me your crib last year?" She said no and pointed to her friend and said, "She's the homeowner, you bought her crib." At this point the homeowner joined the conversation, and she was obviously thrilled to hear my story of how I bought the crib last September without knowing that in October my son would come from Hawaii for job interviews and that in November he moved his wife and 16-month-old son to Seattle from Hawaii. It turned out to be a very good thing that I had that crib for the week that they stayed with us before moving into their home in Seattle, and it is used so much for overnights at Grandma's now, for both of my grandsons and other grandchildren to come.

But this is not where our conversation ended, and it's not even the reason for this blog post. These three women--I'm going to call them the Fox Island Girls (FIGs)--it turns out have been friends for 12 years. They became friends when their husbands started working together, and they just hit it off. Now they are all raising their children together.

Of course I had to tell them about the Bethel Valley Girls. I also told them about the Route 66 Party I just had for my husband, and the Jack Benny Party 27 years ago. I told them, "We raised our children together, and now we are grandparents together." I told them how nice it is to be at this stage of life and look back and realize how much fun we've all had DOING LIFE TOGETHER.

I like that, DOING LIFE TOGETHER. We have marked the passage of time with flair, if I do say so myself. And I wouldn't want it any other way. The FIGs are "twelve years into it," as they put it. They told me they will look for me next September and will want to hear more of the escapades we have with our friends as we continue DOING LIFE TOGETHER.

Next year I'll tell them it's time to start their own FIG blog.Scenes from Fox Island

"The Accidental Tourist" Revisted

**Please read "The Accidental Tourist" before reading this blog post.

As I wrote in "The Accidental Tourist," in 1994, as I began walking The Freedom Trail in Boston with my husband and our daughter, I tripped and fell to the ground. This fall was definitely worthy of being in the Top Twelve of my "Legends of My Falls."

Three years later, on a return trip to Boston, this time with my husband and our two sons, I again walked The Freedom Trail. I was prepared for the uneven sidewalk and avoided falling. Without knowing that someday I would want proof of the uneven sidewalk for my blog, we stopped and I had my husband take a picture of me and our older son (Note: the pool player!) at the scene of the crime. Look, three years later and the sidewalk is still uneven! But what I am gesturing toward is the manhole cover for Boston Steam. Yes, STEAM, and boy, was I ever STEAMED that my hands landed on that manhole cover and got burned. I guess it's too late to sue.......

Elletu: Like Mother, Like Daughter

Elletu, the early years. No wonder her daughter learned to play pool at such a young age.

Train up your children in the way that they should go!

The History of Mr. Potato Head

Of all the birthday cards my husband received this year, this one from Cool's husband still makes me chuckle every time I think about it, which has been every day. Aside from the humor, the card had me wondering about the history of Mr. Potato Head. The following is from Wikipedia. I suggest the BVG's read this and learn, because it could be the subject of our next Brain Quiz. Next Wednesday night is, after all, our next BVG night, and we need some sort of a quiz to keep our aging brains in shape. What might be worth learning is how George Lerner managed to take something he did for fun as a child and converted it in to a winning idea. My young son once took apple slices and carrot slices and toothpicks and made a helicopter. The rotors went around but it never took off. We were always saying, "Don't play with your food!" Good thing George Lerner's parents didn't stop him.

And now, without further ado, this from Wikipedia:

In the early 1940s, Brooklyn-born toy inventor George Lerner came up with the idea of inserting small, pronged body and face parts into fruits and vegetables to create a "funny face man".^[2] Lerner would often take potatoes from his mother's garden and, using various other fruits and vegetables as facial features, he would make dolls with which his younger sisters could play. The grape-eyed, carrot-nosed, potato-headed dolls became the principal idea behind the plastic toy which would later be manufactured.
In the beginning, Lerner's toy proved controversial. With the war and food rationing a recent memory for most Americans, the use of fruits and vegetables to make toys was considered irresponsible and wasteful. Toy companies rejected Lerner's creation.^[2] After several years of trying to sell the toy, Lerner finally convinced a food company to distribute the plastic parts as premiums in breakfast cereal boxes. He sold the idea for $5,000. But in 1951, Lerner showed the idea to Henry and Merrill Hassenfeld, who conducted a small school supply and toy business called Hassenfeld Brothers (later changed to Hasbro). Realizing the toy was quite unlike anything in their line, they paid the cereal company $2,000 to stop production and bought the rights for $5,000. Lerner was offered an advance of $500 and a 5% royalty on every kit sold. The toy was dubbed Mr. Potato Head and went into production.^[2]
Mr. Potato Head was "born" on May 1, 1952. The original toy cost $0.98, and contained hands, feet, ears, two mouths, two pairs of eyes, four noses, three hats, eyeglasses, a pipe, and eight felt pieces resembling facial hair. The original Mr. Potato Head kit did not come with a potato "body", so parents had to provide their own potato into which children could stick the various pieces. Shortly after the toy's initial release, an order form for 50 additional pieces was enclosed in every kit.^[2]
On April 30, 1952, Mr. Potato Head became the first toy advertised on television. The campaign was also the first to be aimed directly at children; before this, commercials were only targeted at adults, so toy adverts had always been pitched to parents.^[8] This commercial revolutionized marketing, and caused an industrial boom. Over one million kits were sold in the first year.^[2] In 1953, Mrs. Potato Head was added, and soon after, Brother Spud and Sister Yam completed the Potato Head family with accessories reflecting the affluence of the fifties that included a car, a boat trailer,^[9] a kitchen set, a stroller, and pets called Spud-ettes. Although originally produced as separate plastic parts to be stuck into a real potato or other vegetable, a plastic potato was added to the kit in 1964.^[1]
In the 1960s, government regulations forced the Potato Head parts to be less sharp, leaving them unable to puncture vegetables easily. By 1964, the company was therefore forced to include a plastic potato "body" in its kit. Little children were also choking on the small pieces and cutting themselves with the sharp pieces.^[10] About this time, Hasbro introduced Oscar the Orange and Pete the Pepper, a plastic orange and green pepper with attachable face parts similar to Mr. Potato Head's. Each came with Mr. Potato Head in a separate kit. Female characters Katie Carrot and Cookie Cucumber also made an appearance. Hasbro also made a fast food based line called Mr. Potato Head's Picnic Pals. Some characters were Mr. Soda Pop Head and Franky Frank. The friends and pals were later discontinued, but Funko revived Oscar and Pete as bobbleheads (along with a Mr. Potato Head bobblehead) in 2002.
In 1975, the main potato part of the toy doubled in size and the dimensions of its accessories were similarly increased. This was done mainly because of new toy child safety regulations that were introduced by the U.S. government. This change in size also increased the market to younger children, enabling them to play and attach the facial pieces easily. Hasbro also replaced the holes with flat slats, which made it impossible for users to put the face pieces and other body parts the wrong way around. In the 1980s, Hasbro reduced the range of accessories for Mr. Potato Head to one set of parts. The company did, however, reintroduce round holes in the main potato body, and once again parts were able to go onto the toy in the wrong locations.
In 1985, Mr. Potato Head received four postal votes in the run for mayor of Boise, Idaho in the "most votes for Mr. Potato Head in a political campaign" as verified by Guinness World Records
In 1987, Mr. Potato Head became "Spokespud" for the annual Great American Smokeout and surrendered his pipe to Surgeon General C. Everett Koop in Washington, D.C.^[1]
In 1995, Mr. Potato Head made his debut in Hollywood with a leading role in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Toy Story,^[1] with the voice provided by comedian Don Rickles.
In 2000, Mr. Potato Head was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, NY.
In 2006, Hasbro also began selling sets of pieces without bodies for customers to add to their collections. Some of these themed sets included Chef, Construction Worker, Firefighter, Halloween, King, Mermaid, Police Officer, Pirate, Princess, Rockstar, and Santa Claus. In the same year, Hasbro introduced a line called "Sports Spuds"^[11] with a generic plastic potato (smaller than the standard size) customized to a wide variety of professional and collegiate teams.

September 11: Day of Remembrance

This photo is of my two sons atop the World Trade Center in July 1997. Four years and two months later the Twin Towers of the WTC were brought down in the horrific terrorist attack upon the United States. In July 1994 we took our daughter up in the WTC. This was one year after the first terrorist bombing of the Center, and the security measures were in place to keep that from happening again. Who could ever have imagined what would occur on September 11, 2001, when commercial airliners were used to do what was intentioned in the 1993 bombing?

Today is the 13th anniversary of the horror that will forever be etched in our minds and in our hearts. I grew up in the '50's, the decade after the attack on Pearl Harbor. That infamous day, December 7, 1941, forever changed the lives of my parents and their generation. This is our Pearl Harbor.

We took our three children to the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor when we first visited Hawaii in July 1987. When our family moved to Hawaii in July 1998--without our daughter who had graduated from college and was beginning her career in California--we returned to the Arizona Memorial. This was the first of many visits to come for us as Hawaii residents as that was always the #1 destination requested by all of our many visitors during the nine years we lived there. We went with our daughter when she visited. We never grew tired of going there, as sobering as it was. I had the narration accompanying the movie at the visitor's center memorized, but it never grew old. I remembered my mother saying, "May we never forget," and I passed that on to my children. When you see the names of the lives lost there, you get choked up, all these decades later.

In December 2008 our whole family, including our daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law-to-be, returned to New York City and visited the site of the World Trade Center. What had been two sky-scraping towers when we were there before was then a huge, gaping crater. Tourists lined that crater as they did every day. People weren't speaking. Mere words could not express the profound sadness experienced just standing there, looking, remembering.

A Day of Remembrance, that's what today is. Inevitably, people will share their stories of where they were when they first heard about the attacks of 9-11. Many of our friends had their TV's on and watched the second plane go into the second tower. We were blissfully asleep in Hawaii and didn't find out until our daughter called us from Seattle. She lived in California but was in Seattle for a few days, then was to fly that morning to Boston to care for a friend who was having surgery at the time planes flying out of Boston were hijacked and then used in the terrorist attacks. Our daughter's plane, like planes all over the country, was grounded by national order so she couldn't fly out of Seattle as planned. She called us and said, "Don't worry, I just wanted to let you know I'm okay." We knew she would be flying that morning and wondered if her plane had had an accident or something. It was impossible to take in what she was telling us over the phone. Planes flown into the World Trade Center? Both towers down? Too impossible to fathom!! We got up, turned on the TV, and sat there stunned like everyone else around the world.

As my mother would say about Pearl Harbor I will say to my children and grandchildren: May we never forget. Don't ever let September 11 become anything other than a Day of Remembrance. Today we remember, we pray, we reflect. Today I thank God anew that we were able to take all three of our children up in the World Trade Center as well as to the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. They won't forget. They have seen with their eyes. They have experienced.

Life goes on, as it inevitably does, but today we honor those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, and we pray to God that this sort of thing never happens again.

Today, WE REMEMBER.

My Jimi Hendrix Story--and What is With That Beehive???

My family is so tired of hearing my Jimi Hendrix story, I hesitate to mention it here. That's me in the picture above, the one with that amazing beehive hairstyle. What was I thinking? But then it was the late '60's. I'm sure I thought it looked good on me. See the girl kneeling in the middle of the front row, the one in the green dress? That's Janie Hendrix, Jimi Hendrix' stepsister. What you see here is my Sunday School class of second grade girls at my family's Seattle church, Dunlap Baptist. This is the church where I was raised and baptized and where our children were dedicated. While most of my service at the church centered around music, I adored teaching these girls. I had a special relationship with Janie, and I was not in the least fazed by her familial relationship to her insanely famous brother.

A year after this picture was taken, Jimi Hendrix died from a drug overdose, sending shock waves throughout the music world. Perhaps more shocking was the fact that Jimi Hendrix' funeral was held at MY CHURCH! It's not that Jimi ever stepped foot in the church, and I'm not even sure his father, Al Hendrix, did either. But every Sunday Al brought Janie to Sunday School, and every Sunday I taught her. My niece was in the class too (in the other green dress), so I did a lot of extra things with the girls, and that's how I formed a bond with Janie. That was solidified when I was with Janie as she asked Jesus in to her heart.

My children were never impressed with the fact that Jimi's funeral was at Dunlap. It meant little to them that I played the piano at church on a Sunday, and four days later Miles Davis' hands were playing that same piano at Jimi's funeral. They had little interest in my retelling of watching the national news that evening and seeing film from outside my family church as music celebrity after music celebrity disembarked from limos and went in the church for the funeral of a sensational world-renowned guitarist. They weren't as disgusted as I was when I paged through Miles Davis' autobiography and discovered how horribly he trashed my pastor, the 'white' pastor who had no right to talk about a 'black' superstar.

This went on for years, and then one day something happened. I happened to mention that the same pastor who officiated at Jimi Hendrix' funeral also dedicated them. Bingo! Now it became THEIR story, and they stole it from me.

Just so you know, I actually stayed in touch with Janie over the years. She is the CEO of Experience Hendrix as well as the Executive Director of the Jimi Hendrix Park Foundation. I think it's been a good ten or eleven years since we last exchanged e-mail. That gives me an idea: I should send her a copy of this picture!

Now, about that beehive....It was developed in 1960. Surprisingly, it still shows up in movies and remains a symbol of 1960's kitsch. Now I'm wondering, did the other BVG's wear beehives in the '60's too? Calling all BVG's-----send me your pictures.