When will you teach me to knit (1962)?

I usually spent evenings in our Rec Room watching TV while my Mom knitted. Mom knitted most of the time. She knitted when she talked on the phone, she knitted when she rode in the car, and she knitted with her friends when they came over for coffee.

I can't imagine what it would have been like to grow up with a Mom who didn't knit.

Suburban Chicago, 1962. I am so anxious to do something, that I nearly jump out of the little painted chair. Mom sits in a naugahyde coral lounger that moved to the basement soon after Dad took this photograph. There's an ironing board behind Mom. My paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, used to iron in the Rec Room while she watched the afternoon broadcast of General Hospital.

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Mom must have thought that crochet would be a good "gateway drug" for knitting. That idea didn't float well because I never took to crocheting.

Suburban Chicago, 1962. Mom uses an inexpensive skein to teach me to crochet. Mom has changed into her stay-at-home clothes after a day at the office.