Heirloom.

Yesterday my Gramps gave me this lovely little painting. In 1939 he purchased it at Dayton's for his mother (my great-grandmother & namesake) as a birthday gift. It was a mere coincidence that it was inscribed, "Delilah", though I suspect that is what spurred Gramps to buy the painting for her as Delilah was her first name.

I never knew her, but I was named for her so I do feel a certain affinity for her. I grew up hearing about her. I know her life story backwards & forwards: the names of all nine of her children, the house she lived in, the house she was born in. Her heartaches & her joy.

Handsome Randy & I have recently begun watching the new HBO series, Boardwalk Empire. Boardwalk Empire takes place in the year 1920, which is the year Gramps was born. As I've been watching this program, I have been struck with thoughts of my great-grandmother, Delilah- Dolly actually is the name she went by- and what life must have been like for her as a woman/mother/wife during that time. Pretty tough.

By 1920, Dolly had bore 7 of 9 children. She was 32 years old. The family lived on what was then considered the outskirts of Minneapolis in Liberty Heights, not so affectionately referred to as "The Sticks," according to Gramps. They had 4 rooms in that little house - 2 bedrooms, a kitchen & sitting room. The bathroom was an outdoor outhouse or "biffy". There were chickens and a pig in the backyard. Working in construction, her husband, Royce was the sole financial supporter of the family while she stayed home with the children and tended to the house. Voting was a brand new right for women.

This is in great contrast to my own life at age 32 today in 2010. I have not born any children. While I live in Minneapolis less than a mile from where Dolly raised her family & lived out her years, I have no animals in my backyard (aside from a house cat) & I have indoor plumbing. My husband Randy and I share household expenses equally and I hold a full time job. I did not have to fight for the right to vote & have exercised this right since I turned 18.

Oh yes, I think about Dolly a lot and needless to say, this little painting is a priceless and prized possession.

I have grown up admiring it and being told that one day, when I was old enough, it would be mine. When I brought it home yesterday I was elated. I rubbed the frame with lemon oil and polished the glass. I held the painting in my hands and imagined what Dolly felt when she saw it for the first time. She smiled, was happy- probably very touched- and said, "Thank you, Doug, " or maybe even, "Thank you, Dougie." I like to think that she called him Dougie for endearment. I don't know where it hung in her home, only that it hung somewhere from that day in 1939 until my grandpa reclaimed it after her death in 1977.

This Little Painting does not only represent my great-grandmother, Dolly, but also my Gramps, Doug Davis. Gramps had it hanging in his living room until a few years ago when he took it down to make way for an art piece he'd received as a gift. It was then moved to an easel and set among family photos on a dining room hutch. This spring the hutch was dismantled ("too much clutter") and The Little Painting was set aside.

The Little Painting brings me back to rides to piano lessons and theatre classes given by Gramps during which he gave history lessons as well as talked past and present day politics with me. These car rides made me feel wise beyond my years and as I grew older the lessons grew into discussions. Now the conversations we used to have in his little Ford Escort take place a few times a week in the living room of his apartment a mere 3 blocks from my own house and a mile or so from Dolly's, his childhood home, where The Little Painting originally hung for 38 years.

I am not exactly certain where I will hang it, but The Little Painting will be in a place that I pass by everyday. And with that passing, I will always be reminded of my great-grandmother Dolly, my Gramps and the impressive stock that I come from.

xoxx

Boyz II Men!

Remember this?

Man, I loved this song. It was my freshmen year of high school. I had the casette, Cooleyhighharmoney. Back then I was wearing Girbaud Jeans, Keds, & sported an Esprit Bag to school everyday.  Additionally, I'm pretty sure I listened to my Shai & Jodeci records until well after my mother could even sing along. It was the summer after that I discovered 4 Non Blondes & Stone Temple Pilots which led to Juliana Hatfield, Bikini Kill & The Pixies upon which I promptly traded my Girbauds in for thriftstore Wranglers, accompanied by Chuck Taylors & a canvas backpack that was decorated with a sharpie...and well, the rest is history.

xoxx

Michael Jackson 1958 - 2009

The Moon Walk. White Gloves. The Best Dance Songs Ever: Beat It, P.Y.T., Don't Stop..., among so many more. The epic videos. The Jackson Five. The sunglasses & zipper Jacket. And of course the trademark appearance he sported in his prime.



This is my favorite way to remember him.

This was the era in which I was his biggest fan. My grandmother worried about her 5 year old granddaughter's dream of marrying The King of Pop, but in the end the only Michael Jackson t-shirt I had was a gift from her. I guess he won her over too.

xoxx

The Hollywood

I grew up a block away from The Hollywood Theatre, a once glamorous art deco movie house. The Hollywood opened in 1935 closing 52 years later in 1987. I was 9 years old when it closed, but remember the theatre vividly and fondly.

A few weeks ago, The Hollywood was open to the public. My friends Meg & Mark were with me and I likely bored them as I excitedly exclaimed, "I remember watching E.T. up there!" and "Over there was a Pac-Man video game table. Remember those? Oh all the big kids got to play on that, they were so cool." Amazingly, despite all of the decay from being closed for 22 years I could still see what it once was and it remarkably felt the same.

It was phenomenal to be inside the theatre and to have all those old memories jogged. But more striking was all the memories people shared while walking through. We ran into my grandpa there. He was with 2 friends who he grew up with blocks away from the theatre. The three of them strolled around reminscing over movies they'd seen there the pennies they saved for admission, and the sodas they'd shared at the drugstore on the corner after. I overheard people talking about seeing Star Wars, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf & Splash. It was a little bit moving.

I lingered in the theatre for a while, not feeling quite ready to leave. There is no set future for the Hollywood and a lot of talk of what should or shouldn't happen with it. So, I just wanted to savor it a little longer and try to memorize details of what was left. When I walked out the door, I looked back & made a wish that the next time I enter those doors it will be to see a film inside an again glamorous movie house.

xoxx

magical snow.

Snow. The magic of white flakes falling from the sky.
It is so very magical.
When my grandmother was living she always seemed to be so happy when the pretty white flakes feel from the sky, especially when they were those thick, tissue paper like kind that are so picturesque. Sometimes, when it snows I feel as though that is her way of saying hello & I try really hard to feel her presence.
This weekend it snowed overnight. I slept late & walked out of the house to meet Handsome Randy & there it was: SNOW! Not a lot, only enough to blanket the yard with a few fallen leaves poking through. But enough to make it officially winter in Minneapolis & celebrate my grandma's love for snow for a few moments while I relished her memory.
xoxx

The Eve of the Hollow

As I write this it is the eve of All Hollow's Eve. I am dressing up tomorrow night for the first time in at least four years. Pippi Longstocking. A character I have wanted to be for Halloween for so long...but my hair has never been long enough. The last time I dressed up I don't think I was anything specific, I just put on a vintage dress and went to a party. funny. The year before that I was Rosie the Riveter, that was a good one.

This past Friday, my friend, Britta & I walked through the Warehouse District downtown (To you non Minneapolitans, this is where all the meat market bars are, think Pioneer Square in Seattle). We sifted through hundreds (okay, well not hundreds, but a lot) of women in leotards & corset type tops masked as a bunny or an elf or in one really bizarre instance, a Firefighter. We laughed and had a really nice discussion of the Pretty Factor on Halloween and how as a woman, there can be a tendency to only be something that you can be pretty and sparkly and show off your legs & cleavage.

Well, Pippi did none of that & my version of her won't either.

So, Halloween.

Growing up, the eve of Halloween was always a night of trying on the costume over and over. Or my mother staying up til the wee hours of the morning finishing hems and making final touches on the costume. She always made the most amazing, detailed & intricate costumes: E.T., Tweety Bird, Princess, Can Can Dancer, Flapper...oh the list goes on and on. And Halloween night, after trick or treating, we would dump our pillow cases of candy on the living room floor and sort, then trade, then gorge. The last to be eaten were always Jolly Ranchers and those funny taffy carmel things that were wrapped in orange or black wax paper. Those were no good. I distinctly remember my 8th grade halloween spent at home, alone, watching the Beverly Hills 90210 Halloween special and handing out candy. It was the first year I wanted to hand out candy and I did just that, happily to all the other kids in my neighborhood.

In junior high I had a Social Studies teacher, Mr. Dentz, who gave a fantastic lecture on Halloween. He talked about it's origins & how it evolved into what it is today. I remember the jist, but the details are vague. I do very clearly remember him walking across our classroom saying, "The Earth is Decaying! Winter is upon us! This marks the beginning of the end of the Harvest!" He had waist length hair he typically kept pulled back in a pony tail, but on this day it was down and it seemed to sway all over as marched in front of us. I think of him every Halloween and through out Autumn with this image in mind.

My first year of college I was naively shocked that people would go out and party on Halloween night as it was a Wednesday and we had classes the next morning. I remember Kajsa & Shelly, two other women in my dorm, in front of our dorm drunk and smoking at 10 or so Halloween night. They were dressed as crayons (not in leotards) & couldn't believe I wasn't going out. I hadn't thought of it. Honestly. The rest of my college Halloweens were definately passed at Parties. I was a cowgirl one year and I remember my college boyfriend & I dressing up as Old People another year. I threw on a housedress and knee high nude nylons and we put baby powder in our hair. That same year I remember a specific foursome (or maybe fivesome) dressing up as a cult of our classmate, Louis. They all wore black, I think & had name tags: Lois, Louise, Lou, maybe Lola...I can't remember the rest, but it was hiliarious & I am laughing about it as I write this. So funny. Louis and his lady (now wife) were Agents Mulder and Scully that year. I am marveling at my memory and how it just spits things at me as I reminisce.

College Halloweens typically entailed a lot of drinking. One year, I think my Sophomore year, 3 friends of mine shared a big botle of Jack Daniels and they all got very drunk but had three very different outcomes. One ended his night laughing hysterically at a party and the entire walk home. Another ended her night throwing up at the same party and through out the same walk home. The third never made it to the party. He passed out early but not before entertaining us with some amazing antics on the dining room floor. Ah, college.

What will this Halloween bring me? A night of waiting tables in costume and maybe a cocktail if I'm lucky. I'm sure it won't hold a candle to those in the past but will probably be alot livlier than the last few. I'll let you know. Enjoy your Halloween, dress up, have fun & most importantly, be safe.

xoxx

Royal Crown Cola

The consumption of RC (Royal Crown Cola is yet another tradition (or habit?) of my family. There was a time when the coveted soda was so hard to find that when my cousins or I would see it in stock at the grocery store we'd buy all there was to stock pile at my grandparents' house. Ha. Thankfully it is now in plentiful supply & my aunt, PAL keeps it well stocked in her fridge. Raise your RC can to that!
xoxx

The Nerd Gown.

i have a very large collection of sleepwear. Most are vintage, whispy nightdresses that I've found at thrift stores and estate sales. They are all unique in style and color. They litter the doornobs of our bathrooms and the underspace of our bed pillows. I take a lot of pride in my sleepwear collection and probably have enough to reserve one piece for every week of the year. I have a few favorites and a handful I have only slept in once. I might even venture to suggest that some nights I agonize over which nightdress to wear as much as I would over what clothes to wear for the day. Sometimes I smile for a whole day at a unique nightdress that I've found. This type of find leaves me feeling so much anticipation to put it on when I go to bed that sometimes I'm tempted to go to bed hours early.
When it gets cold those whispy nightdresses just don't cut it. it's time to take out my Cuddleduds: a thick, cotton nightgown complete with polo collar and long sleeves. It's ankle length, white with blue flowers all over it. The Nerd Gown. A Christmas gift from my mother one year. I unwrapped it and politely noted how warm it would be to sleep in, "Thank you SO much." I brought it home and put it in my drawer with no intention to ever take it out again, let alone wear it.
Then January arrived and changed that. January is the coldest month in Minnesota. So cold that sometimes it seems no matter how many blankets you pile on your bed you still wake in the middle of the night FREEZING which prohibits any kind of useful sleep. It was this cold that moved me to abandon my cute, colorful nightdresses & throw on the Nerd Gown. I get through the shock of the cold damp of October and the aforementioned unfathomably cold January with the embrace and warmth of my lovely Nerd Gown. No middle of the night FREEZING, no way, in The Nerd Gown I always sleep through the night quite productively. xoxx

me + a little deer

This was probably taken sometime in 1979 as I look to be a little over a year old. It's almost surreal. I love this photo so much. xoxx

ode to gramps.

this is my gramps, Doug Davis. a WWII vet, labor/union activist, retired teacher, volunteer lobbyist (senior citizen health care issues), DFL activist, feminist, advocate, Proud Northeaster, Lutheran.
he's 87. he still drives. he cooks all of his meals and lots of homemade soups. he has a computer and an e mail address. he also has cable and a flat screen television. despite these distractions he spends the majority of his home time writing or reading, and doing his latest hobby, bookbinding. when he's not home he's usually at a meeting, sometimes social, sometimes professional or out walking to keep in shape.
i grew up with this guy giving me rides all over town and waiting with me at my bus stop most mornings. He often sent me to school with a lunch of PBJ, lots of oreo cookies and a can of jolt He let me put as much sugar on my frosted flakes as I wanted. Every car ride was a social studies lesson and I put of getting my license to prolong them. Every year on D-Day he asks young grocery store baggers and clerks who cross his path if they know what day it is. Usually they don't and he reminds them of D-Day and all that happened on those beaches at Normandy on that day.
he taught me to be tolerant, loyal and to have a mind of my own. When i began my second year of college I was incredibly unhappy and he was the only one who told me it would be okay to take a break and just work if I needed to (I didn't).
he lives about a mile from the house he & his 7 siblings grew up in and the house he raised his family in (my aunt lives in that one). he likes his neighborhood.
tonight he participated in a reading that was put on by his writing group, "The Audobon 8". He was in his element and everyone was captivated by his charm and writing (a poem about the labor movement, a prose about winter).
he is a fantastic man and I love him very much. xoxx

i am my father's daughter

i have many memories growing up of my dad taking family photos of our extended family (he'd set up a tripod & then run into the photo at the last second). The thing I remember most about these times is my dad perpetually saying "One More! Just in case!" Everyone grumbles, "Come on! You like em when you get em back! [meaning the photos] Just smile a little longer!", more grumbling but with smiles & the flashbulb continues to go off. And, everyone did love them when they were developed.

Handsome Randy arrived home from Australia last night after being gone for a little over 2 weeks. Prior to that he was home for a week after being gone for 2 months. We are elated with each other's company.
Last night we sat in our bedroom flipping through random cable & catching up with each other's stories. It was hot & he was super tired from the trip home. At one point he was laying on our bed with his head dangling over the side upside down watching tv. it was a great photo op, I thought. So, I pulled out the old polarioid & took a picture. He sighed but obliged.

I then jumped in & put the
camera on automatic timer.
But I didn't like the photo.
One More!


This was okay, but...
One More!


[HR sighs with a grumble]
Come On! You Always Like Them When You See Them!




























& he did. xoxx

the places we live.

I was riding my bike around Lake of The Isles last week and saw a house being demolished. It was such a surreal sight; half of it was gone exposing the inside of the home as though it were a dollhouse. There were about 20 people watching from the sidewalk, including one elderly man who looked so sad. I imagined him disliking the trend of people buying older million dollar homes on the Minneapolis Lakes and then tearing them down to build their own "McMansion". Who knows what he was thinking or if he was even sad about the house (I do tend to dramatize these situations). But it got me thinking about the sentimentality of houses we live in and have lived in.
My mom still lives in the house that she and my dad brought me home to from the hospital. I love that house. It's a really great 1920's craftsman style bungalow in Northeast Minneapolis. The woodwork is beautiful and it has all sorts of neat built ins. My mother has the most extensive and beautiful gardens of anyone on her block & her patio is the perfect place to be on a lovely summer evening. But it's not the woodwork or the gardens that mean so much, it's knowing the story behind most nicks in the woodwork & remembering when the 25 year old dishwasher was brand new. If someone bought that house only to tear it down I would be heartbroken. But houses tend to stay in my family...
On both sides of my family, homes of my grandparents are now resided in by aunts and uncles. The home belonging my great grandparents was sold sometime in the early 1990's to, gasp, strangers! This is still a little bit of a sore spot in certain circles..
And to think of the places I lived in college. When I went back to Tacoma 2 years ago we drove by each of them (4 in all) in the middle of the night. It felt very nostaligic driving through the North End, almost as though I would drive upon my college self walking (or maybe staggering) home from a party.
In my six years of residence in the city of lakes, I have lived in 3 places. My current abode is the top two floors of a lovely, old duplex. There is a lot of character, beautiful woodwork and great built-ins. sometimes I look over the dented wood work and try to imagine how that deep scratch came to be on the buffet, or who varnished it all so painstakingly.
Perhaps they too have driven by our house half expecting to see their former self walk out.
xoxx

The Legacy of the Centerpiece.

Last week I changed our dining room centerpiece from a collection of candles on a cake platter to several faux lemons & a few faux limes on a platter. I love it & it looks striking on our black dining room table. Handsome Randy has joked to me all week about us having a "12 Lemon Centerpiece" (sans the movie, The Break-Up).
So last night we're sitting at the dining room table talking & he picks up a lemon, tosses in the air & catches it. Then he pauses for a moment puzzled, "These aren't real?!"
"No."
He examines the lemon more carefully, "I thought they were real."
We then discussed how I actually made a trip to the hobby/craft store for the sole purpose of purchasing faux fruit for a dining room centerpiece. "I know it seems silly to some, but having a good centerpiece just makes me feel like our house is in some sort of order. I need it. I'm a Langer, that's how we are."
I said this in a joking manner, but it's no joke; it's serious bussiness.
I come from a long line of women who had & continue to have centerpieces that shift through out the year. Some more than others, but they are a necessity to us and we take pride in them.
My grandmother always had centerpieces on her dining room, kitchen, & coffee tables. The dining room & coffee table pieces were typically silk flowers arranged by my aunt Pal & were changed a couple of times per year, with the exception of christmas - there's always seperate centerpieces for christmas across the board (except at our house..putting up a tree is enough for me). On the center of my grandparents' kitchen table was always the same green acrylic bowl filled with plastic grapes & real fruit. This was a mainstay until they both passed away. On a recent trip to my aunt Stephanie's home, I saw the bowl (still filled with the same grapes) on her kitchen table. Seeing that my grandparents' fruit bowl centerpiece did not go in some box & into an attic after their deaths was somehow of comfort to me. That centerpiece, though it is just a centerpiece, represents a piece of life as it was before. It's nostalgia & it feels good to see.
My two cousins, who are 1 and 5 years older than me, consistantly have centerpieces on their tables too. Dining, coffee, kitchen, etc. One prefers variations of silk flowers with rocks or marbles, the other bamboo shoots in water or other crisp, zen like pieces.
My aunt Pal, who is now the matriarch of our family, is the most elaborate & well practiced with her centerpieces. There are many through out her home & most change seasonally. 4 in all: Kitchen table, Kitchen counter, Dining room table, Fireplace mantle & hearth. She has seperate centerpiece collections for easter, spring, summer, autumn, thanksgiving, christmas & just for inbetween. When one of my cousins was married last summer, Pal was left with a huge amount of pink mums from the reception centerpieces. She put them together in a huge bunch & threw them in an upside cake platter top & voila: the kitchen table centerpiece for the Post-Wedding brunch was done. It was so simple, yet so increidibly beautiful.
Pal is inspiration for us all & typically has not only great ideas & advice for our centerpieces, but has components that we can borrow or have if need be. For example, last night I was telling her of my plans for the centerpiece for our porch table come summer. It calls for river rock. "Okay. Now honey, don't buy any rocks, I have a bunch downstairs - you can just take what you want." Perfect, thank you.
And so, traveling to a craft/hobby store only to spend $16 on faux fruit may seem silly or frivelous to some. But for me you see, it's imperative to have that faux fruit in the center of my table & it is for the rest of the Langer women too. xoxx.