Remember May baskets? It’s almost May Day. Have you ever had a May basket or remember the tradition? I got my May baskets back in the 1950s. Not just decorated Dixie cups laden with a few pieces of candy, but elaborate crepe paper covered holders with woven crepe paper handles and streamers. I don’t recall ever receiving an actual woven basket. But that wasn’t the tradition on the coast of Maine at the time. The Burns boys would hang baskets on Cross Street. Their mother and grandmother made them! The tradition calls for hanging the basket on the door, ringing the bell, if there was one, and running away quickly. The recipient had to chase the gifter, and I think you were supposed to kiss him or her, but I don’t remember following thru on that part. There was supposed to be great fanfare in the chase, and equally grand embarrassment, if you couldn’t catch the gifter, whether male or female. But I do remember the chase. It wasn’t all meant to be romantic, all tho’ that’s the way some people choose to remember it. For some, it was just a neighborly thing to do on a singularly great day in May. The well-known basket artists had quite a business, if I remember right, at that time. They started weeks in advance, preparing the elaborately decorated containers, taking orders and delivering throughout the area, just in time for someone to fill it, and surprise a lucky recipient. Mrs. Burns and her mother or mother-in-law were the resident artists of the time. I know exactly where they both lived, and I remember seeing the elaborate baskets hanging in the window of the lady in Rockport. They hung there to mark “Her” house on the old Route #1 and the location of the best made baskets anybody knew at the time. I always dreamed of getting one of the really Big ones all purple or pink, with layers of crepe, pulled into delicate curls and fringes surrounding the opening or there may have been a longer “apron” to an elaborately-designed basket. They were not simple concoctions and were quite a prize for anyone lucky enough to receive one. At some point, I remember someone using wallpaper samples and crafting May baskets to take advantage of some nice floral prints. And people also would use Dixie cups or simply paper cones, but none of these fill the bill in my memory. I think they actually used saved oatmeal cylinders or something of equal size and shape. I’ve searched and there is little out there that compares to those elaborate concoctions that fill my memory bank. A quick search on Pinterest came close, but even they didn’t have the right combination, but close. When I moved inland, I was surprised and disappointed that the tradition wasn’t the same. They didn’t observe just May Day, but mistakenly (by my estimation) believed you could dole out May baskets anytime during the month. What fun is that? There is no special day, no anticipation, no fun-loving chase and capture. In recent years, many writers have lamented the passing of the May Day tradition, some tried to resurrect it with crafting tips or suggestions of what constitutes a May basket ( they’ve got it All wrong!) And then there are those that fear it will be brought back, but by some commercial operation with plastic do-dads and lots of commercial candy and gifts….sort of like what happened to Easter and every other holiday that might involve small gifts. REAL May baskets are committed to memory now, but if they’re in your memory maybe it’s time to “write-it-down” so it’s not lost on another generation. Did you hang a May basket? Did you receive one and more importantly perhaps, did you catch the gifter and whatever happened to him or her? Maybe it’s a memory you share with someone else? Or perhaps you should before it’s lost along with those other remembrances you’ve been meaning to share. Brighten someone’s day hang a May basket or share your memories of an old tradition. To learn more about the May basket tradition check out: http://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/04/30/402817821/a-forgotten-tradition-may-basket-day

Your Snow Day assignment

The weather forecast calls for snow...again. What to do on a snowy day? If you're like me, you have stacks, boxes or pages of family photographs. But are they marked with identification? Have you poured through boxes of pictures from your family's past, and lamented that no one ever identified them? If you truly have nothing to do on a snowy day consider pulling out some of those old pictures and identifying them for your family. Let them know which one is Uncle Joe or Cousin Lulu. Better yet, tell the story of how you're related to this batch of photos. I'm not suggesting you start a scrapbook, but maybe that's your next calling. The point is, of course, someone needs to do it....why not you? You're actually accomplishing several tasks. Yes, you're identifying obscure photos so your family will know who is who years after you're no longer around, but perhaps you're also weeding out the duds, the misses and the unidentifiable! That chore could reduce the boxes of long-forgotten "stuff" in your attic or junk room. Haven't you said, several times, you've wanted to do just that? I had a mentor once who was fond of saying "inch by inch, it's a cinch, but yard by yard, it's hard." He was referring to writing your memoirs, but it can be applied to any task. The point is to simply start...somewhere. My suggestion, and the way I've done it, is to start with one box. Pour through and decide what needs to be done with ALL those pictures. Remember when we all had doubles printed? Do you really need two copies of Aunt Bea's prize rose or even one if she's gone and you don't like roses? Or maybe you need just one for your garden idea book? It doesn't belong in a box in the attic either way. How many pictures of your cousin's wedding from 1983 do you really need to remember the event? And who is that standing next to your mother? Will your children know or care in 10 years, or 20? Maybe you'll find a picture of the only trip you ever took to New York, or Europe, or maybe a local historical site. Why did you go? and what happened there? Maybe you can write a short description or explanation to file away with the picture. Or maybe there are a dozen pictures that really do need to go into a scrapbook or that empty photo album you found with the pictures. Maybe you’re into scanning your pictures to preserve them beyond their printed form. Consider it an assignment, with a deadline, the next time it snows. One box or two with each snowstorm could really get a bigger project a long way to completion and a sense of satisfaction for your to-do list and for preserving memories for your family.

All the time there is

Today, I took a look back at some of the blogs/columns (31 on Blogger in nine years) I’ve written over the past few years. I had a lot to say. Sometimes repetitive... Sometimes insightful…sometimes seemingly random and disjointed, but I wrote. And I believe everyone should. Even if it’s only a letter to yourself or your family….everyone should write something down about themselves, their life or their family’s life. That’s history! I know the academics of the world will research the day away in old books, records, photographs or albums. They will carefully match world or U.S. history to local events, and their own experience, recollections or the stories of their ancestors. Great! But not everyone has that kind of self-discipline, and you don’t have to. Did you write a diary page or a letter to yourself about the trip you took to the coast last summer? Or the ride through the woods last weekend? That’s all it takes. One page at a time, one memory at a time and you’ve helped your memory of life and for your children or grandchildren. Believe it or not they will want to know how you spent your days before….whatever the latest technology may be offering. I remember my mother wheeling the wringer washer into the floor, filling the tub and winding a load of clothes through to take it outside to be hung on the line to dry….all four seasons! Now, I push a button to wash, move the load and push a button to dry. My dishes are done! I pushed another button. Now I have time to write again or maybe vacuum…or not. We all say “there isn’t enough time….” for anything, but that’s not true. A school administrator once told me one of the most valuable lessons he learned was from a custodian at the school. When he lamented, “there’s not enough time…” the custodian had the answer, “you’ve got all there is son.” We all have 24 hours in a day, seven days a week, etc. It’s how and where you use the time that makes all the difference. It’s okay to waste time after you push that button. It’s okay to enjoy the sunshine or snow whatever the season may be, but there is no more time. But time also passes…sometimes too quickly. Grab your computer, your tablet or even your phone or a piece of paper and start a page. Tell your grandchildren how you spent your day or your first day on the job. Tell them about the chicken you burned or the great steak you marinated. Tell them your memories of your grandparents, or paddling on the river or when you first met them. Just one page….and yes, even if you never do it again, but while you’re thinking of it. I know my message is repetitive and I sometimes have to remind myself to do what I say. But I truly believe everyone wants to know about their family, or their hometown, or childhood home or perhaps it’s a special family home in a distance place or memory. I have many fond memories of long-gone relatives that I wish everyone, my family, could know. How will they know if I don’t “write it down”?

Obscure memories…because I can

Writing again. Someone once asked if I just “had to write”? Nope, but I write because I can. I’ve discovered I remember my English grammar lessons, and I can spell. So it’s a no-brainer for me…I can write, so I do. But I am not driven to write. I’m driven to collect data, information, history…memories. The only way to preserve all of that is through writing. Of course, I could record it or video myself talking to myself or some unknown audience, but that doesn’t do it for me. I need to “write it down.” And I need to encourage other people to write it down, so it’s not lost. You wouldn’t want your family to lose the memories of a favorite loved one or forget they existed or how they contributed to the family history…so write it down! I want my family to know the great love I had for spending days with my great aunts and uncles. I want them to know how special my grandmother was….at least to me. I want them to know some of the favorite pastimes of these people and how life has changed since they were around or when they were younger. It was such a simpler time their childhood and mine. No electronics to rob our time…just time to do ….things! My grandmother (Nannie) loved a card game called Flinch. I don’t know if it even exists today, but she taught it to me to play with her. And, of course, I’ve long since forgotten how to play or even what the cards looked like except that worn blue stack that she kept handy. My Great Uncle Gene loved to play dominoes with me. He is the only one I ever remember playing with, he and his wife, my Aunt Della. I spent whole days with them. They were well into their 70s. Uncle Gene would walk to town in Rockport with me to pick up some groceries for lunch…whatever I wanted. Pork chops were usually my favorite, but maybe we had fishsticks a few times. He liked to introduce me to the shopkeepers that he knew…there were grocery stores along Main Street in the 1960s. I think he was pleased that this 12 or 14 year-old girl had come to spend the day with them and actually enjoyed it! When I was even younger, he would go out and play baseball with me! And take me in his old truck to visit his Lincolnville garden at his cousin’s place, Colb’ Wiley. I later learned that it was Colburn Wiley named after his mother ‘s family. Uncle Gene kept ducks or geese under the buildings at 18 Park Street (Camden), and a garden in the backyard, but there was a bigger garden in Lincolnville. Colb lived at the corner of the Moody Mountain Road and Route 235…called the Hope Road now? Obscure memories now, but it’s this type of detail that is lost when we don’t write it down or capture it for a future generation. Did you garden as a child? Did you work with an elderly relative or a favorite cousin? Did they have strange or old customs that aren’t observed now? Do you want your children to know those people and how they lived and what they contributed to your life, and perhaps may be the reason you do some of the things you do? It’s simple….write it down!

Harvest your memories

It would be great to get that dependability bug. You know the one where you do what you're expected to do, or expect yourself to do, when you're expected to do it. In retirement that seems to have escaped me, even tho' I do get a bunch done. The last post to this page was in the spring, just before planting season. And now, here we are, and it's harvest season...not that I have to worry about that much...rotten garden results this year. One more year and if it doesn't get better, I'm done...back to the grocery freezer section or hopefully supporting local farmers' markets. Harvest season brings about many traditions and perhaps starts new ones for some. Is this the time you are harvesting or remembering harvests in the past? What do you remember, or how do you observe a harvest season? Is it something your family has always done or something you plan to share with your children or grandchildren? This year, I hope to revive our "boiled dinner day." If not in the same way or the same famiy members, at least to not let the fall pass without hosting a boiled dinner in the crisp fall air. In the past, our extended family would gather at the family camp (where we now live) to help us close up for the season. Many of them got to use the camp during the summer months, and this gathering was a way to gather more help for the many tasks, as well as celebrate the end of another season, sharing the new memories of the season, and perhaps seasons past. Harvest time can be a rich time of memory making whether it's an actual harvest, a regular fall gathering or multiple trips to fall sports events. What is it you want to capture from those memories and how will you do it? Do you need to do it? This is yet another fall if you haven't captured the memories of past fall events or an aging member of your family. This is a reminder, to me and hopefully to anyone else reading this to capture it....write it down, save or copy old photos, maybe tackle or update a scrapbooking project. If you haven't done any of this, maybe this is the year to start. It's never too late, if you can just get started. One memory preserved is simply that one memory, but it can snowball (sorry for the wintery reminder) and help you continue the journey. You can preserve your memories or those of family members or start a collection of family history for the next generation to share, simply....Write it Down. Like me don't worry so much about what you'll do for your next task, begin with this memory, this season.

Time to Grow again

Spring has sprung or so the date on the calendar says. Yet in central Maine there is still an abundant snow cover and the lakes are deeply frozen. It will be interesting to see if it’s weeks or a month or more before we actually see buds or blossoms poking through the soil. For the rest of the country apparently, it is spring. My friends are posting pictures of spring buds, talking about signs of green grass and thinking about preparing for planting. How soon do people actual start planning? I know die-hard gardeners plan ALL winter with diagrams, seed catalogs and research. I’m just not one of them. I think I feel obligated to grow, simply because I can. I was brought up that way. There was always a garden in the backyard. My family couldn’t get through a year without planning for fresh veggies, and spending the rest of the summer and fall preserving them. Did it really help the budget that much? Or was it just the pure love of fresh veggies? In part I think it was the ultimate bargain for my mother. A few cents spent for seeds translated to saved dollars on the weekly grocery bill. It filled the expensive freezer….which is still freezing MORE than 50 years after it was first plugged in! What did your family do for gardening or preserving vegetables, fruits or meat? Are there memories associated with that? I can remember hot summer afternoons and a few mornings spent on the sun porch “snipping” beans…pounds of them! Only to be followed by a long evening blanching them in boiling water and quickly cooling them in ice water to be bagged for the freezer. I think that memory contributes to my love of green beans more than any other vegetable, but cooked properly and thoroughly, as part of a veggie-laden winter meal. I don’t recall that we were often allowed into the garden to actually pick, but perhaps as we became more trustworthy and older. I remember a few times helping place the seeds into the row, but I wasn’t always careful enough to get that right and so I gather I wasn’t often asked. I remember digging potatoes in the fall, even getting my school clothes too dirty on one occasion because I failed to change when I got home…heading to the garden too soon. Extra veggies were always delegated to the "veggie stand" on the front lawn, that actually was an old table from the "play house" behind the barn and a folding lawn chair. I think we sold cucumbers at five cents a piece or six for a quarter. Could that be possible? Were they really that cheap or is my memory forgetting the real price? Either way the sale of veggies, tomatoes, cucumbers maybe beans or potatoes, and of course, corn, supplemented the back-to-school budget so we had funds for a new fall wardrobe. There was a science to it and I gather I absorbed it rather than “learned” it, because a lot of it stays with me today. I plant the way I “know” how just because it feels right. More recently I’ve studied gardening mostly to reassure myself I’m doing it right, I think. Then I don’ t remember what I know and what I’ve learned. Guess it doesn’t make any difference if the plants grow and produce. Then again I keep questioning, why I do this? Because I can or because I know what I’m doing or because of the memories it brings to mind. You must have memories of summer gardening and growing. Have you written them down? There's that reminder again....Write it Down!

February rant....cabin fever delusions

It’s Refund Season according to a television ad! Get your billions back, I’m told. If only…. It’s never that simple and there is not always a refund. By the time you get all the right information together, you’ve earned whatever Might be coming back, if anything. Still we all scramble to get the numbers together, added up, all the paper that substantiates the numbers and all the inane questions answered to document Any change from the previous year. I’m sure younger people, more mobile people, have “stuff” to claim for change or refunds or whatever they may need. Maybe they can keep better track of it than I do. Maybe they are more like I used to be…organized. When did I become disorganized? Am I more disorganized than I used to be? Or do I simply not remember what I’ve organized? That’s always a worthy new year’s resolution: get organized! Well I’ll never call it a resolution, but it is a goal, if not for my financial well-being then for my mental well-being! It would help immensely if I could simply find what I forgot to organize and remember what I did organize. Is that aging? Slowly I’m clearing files, physical and digital. I’m finding things I didn’t know I had, and certainly not why I saved them in the first place. There are keepsakes, thousands of pictures, and just plain stuff you keep because someone said you should keep everything seven years or is it 10 or just three? Well we are double up on most of those years, so out it goes this year…this spring, if not this winter. And there’s not a lot of time left, if I’m to clear out the clutter or saved “stuff” from winter. And that’s the rule IF we haven't used it, needed it or remembered it in a year or more likely two years-plus, it can go! Sale-able “stuff” will be sold or donated. Other stuff that should be stuff for someone else to take care of will be going their way. The rest is likely just junk, and trashy junk at that. Does that constitute a resolution, a plan or just another annual rant? Time will tell. Wish me luck!