Childhood Memories

My friend Julie at "A Succulent Life" had an interesting blog about her childhood doll and its origin. She still has her favorite doll and is taking very good care of it. She also has a link to another site where a blogger shares her childhood doll memories so, since I see a pattern here, I thought I would do the same. Hopefully someone reading this post will join in too!
OK, this is not an actual doll from my childhood - they are long gone. But my childhood fondness for Raggedy Ann & Andy (possibly because they were redheads too) made this handmade patriotic rag doll a must-have for me when I saw it for sale about 15 years ago. She's beautifully made in country shades of red, white, and blue. If you look closely at her right hand (on the left) you may see a piece of stick. There was a flag that broke off. I have tried numerous ways to get that thing back on but it never stays. She is also wearing a "I Like Ike" button.

While she may not be my original doll, she is sitting in my childhood rocker. I had no idea that my Dad had memorabilia from my childhood but every once in a while he drops something on me! About 4 years ago it was this rocker. It was made by the Dixie Seating Company and they are still in business today and still making this rocker. I believe it arrived around my first birthday/Christmas so that would have been December 1958. While the finish is a bit marred, the construction remains perfect.

This photo has Jerry's childhood jointed teddy bear in my rocker. That bear is in danger in our house with two rat terriers who love to destuff dog toys so we keep him way up high on top of a filing cabinet. God help him if he ever falls to the ground :(

Cotton Boll - A Childhood Story

I should save this for tomorrow for Way Back Wednesday but I may not be on tomorrow - have errands which includes a library trip so may have nose in new, juicy book tomorrow night :)

I come from a very long line of farmers - I can trace my ancestry back to farmers as long ago as the late 1600s. My Dad's generation was the first where not everyone farmed (although my dad has made a living in the agricultural equipment business). I still have cousins who farm or manage farm land. Anyway, as a young child I grew up in the agricultural south (Arkansas) surrounded by crops. No mountain, beaches, or dense forrests - just flat, plowed farmland, rivers, and woods. The sight of a browning cotton boll says autumn to me.

I find the cotton plant magical. It's seed pod, commonly known as a boll, holds the fiber we know as cotton, and there is a time of year when the bolls are open, the stalks and leaves are browning, and to me it looks like winter snow. Cotton was king when I was little and the income from this crop supported not only farmers but really the entire town just as fishing supports the economy of Kodiak although everyone is not directly related to commercial fishing.

Anyway, there are old movies of me when I am about 3 or 4 and my parents took me to the river near our town (the Mississippi ,that is) and the cotton was harvested yet there were always stalks left with a little cotton on them. My parents picked one of these leftovers for me as though it were a flower and I loved it. I wouldn't give it up and there is proof on film of this wierd childhood behavior. The story goes that the stalk broke and they had to keep taping it together or I would be upset. I guess I cried when the cotton fell out so they glued it back in. I'm sure I had plenty of toys but for a while I chose a left-behind stalk of cotton, broken and falling apart, as something very special.