Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Nostalgia


Nostalgia strikes....when I was a kid, and my mom would be sewing us designer outfits, (clown suits) she would keep me busy, by searching in the button box for six of this one kind of button. The button box and I know everyone had one, was a Christmas Cookie tin, which I found out, later in life, that all tins were not button boxes and that the primary use of a tin was for cookies. The box was full of a variety of buttons, snaps, hooks and eyes and religious medals? My mom was a great recycler, her Idea of recycling clothing was to cut off the buttons, rip out the zippers and then give them to some collection agency. I am sure the person that got that shirt with no buttons was thrilled with the generousity of some person much better off than they were and had great Christian values??? I think my mom learned this from her mom and it is a tradition that I broke. So I would open the button box and lean on her bed, and pick through the buttons. In those days we didn't have "sewing rooms, family rooms and two bathrooms, we were lucky to have a bedroom and that was shared with however many kids were in the family, so my mom had her sewing machine in their bedroom. I leaned on the bed and would hunt for the special button, it was like a treasure hunt. I would give my mom, a play by play..."Oh I found another one that looks kind of like this one but only has two holes instead of four and it has thread hanging from it and piece of cloth and it may be a little smaller and ......." then silence and the sound of the digging deeper for another button, just like the one she needed. I was on a mission, my mom "Needed" this button...I had a job...."hey mom, can I dump out the button box?" Oh no, you can't do that!!!! It is too hard to get them back into the box? really???? This little game went on for what seemed like forever. Little did I know, she kept me out of her hair and busy finding some dumb ass button that she didn't need and never used any buttons I searched for with my "Eagle eyes"....LOL Well when we cleaned my mom's house out to move, she told me about a white trash bag of buttons...where is the tin??? I have no idea why you would not throw the whole thing out but she found it more convenient to put the buttons in a trash bag and let me know about it?? Don't ask! So yesterday I had an urge to find some old buttons for a project and remembered the bag....wow, what a trip down memory lane. I found all the treasures I would dig through for hours....I remember playing with a few select buttons that I thought were just precious and rare and wow, good thing tastes change....There was one special button and I actually thought there were two but found only one that I called Saturn.....what I remember was a red bead with a sparkly gold ring around it, I guess I imagined the ring swirling around the bead and lights flashing....hey I had a great imagination.....but I recognized it when I saw it....that single button was in the button box for at least 50 years.....and now I am going to give it a home...it is going to be used for a project....and you know what .....it is really kind of ugly!!!!!!!! Tragic report....as I was arranging the buttons for a photo, the bead came unglued, how lucky I am that it didn't fall out while in the trash bag or I would never have recognized it, maybe it did have a mate but is in the trash bag....it's the little things in life....

1 comment:

Janyce said...

Thanks for the memory lane trip. I always loved my mom's button box and still do. For several years I have had one of those to do plans to make a crocheted button necklace. Maybe a good snow project for tonight.