Saturday Mail Delivery

Urbana, Illinois, June 1981. I lived here for two years.

"Remembering you ... we are always together."

Kaunas, Lithuania, November 30, 1995. My Mom's friend Joy cherishes an image from the portrait sitting.

Everyone admires Gigi.

Suburban Chicago, January 1979. It's Sunday, so we relax in the Rec Room.

I return after the first day of classes.

 

Urbana, Illinois, September 1980. I did my most productive studying in this room. The book on the "sliding bed/couchy thing" is for a course about twentieth-century Russian history. (Russian history was one of my four fields in graduate school.) An engaging professor taught that class. I was sorry to learn he recently died.

A Gift

Verona, Wisconsin, March 2015. This week's crane activity reminded me of the petit point* I stitched as a wedding gift for Mr. Irene. I chose this design because cranes symbolize fidelity.

*I used a canvas with 32 holes per inch.

No-Harm-Done Reunion

Suburban Chicago, February 1983. Meškė tests the foot stool as a teething toy.

Crafty Afternoon

Door County, Wisconsin, August 1983. Mom tackles another needlepoint project while her best friend, Donna, works on her knitting. Meškė spots the camera.

(You might recognize the lamp.)

Knitting Together, Again

Door County, Wisconsin, October 1979. Mom and her best friend, Donna, share more knitting time. Mom's still working on that fair-isle, yoked sweater.

It was a short-lived fad.

Suburban Chicago, August 1975. It was popular (among crafters) to needlepoint canvases printed with the images of art by "great masters." Mom and I gave into the fad for a while. I never finished the Fragonard; Mom completed her piece, and it hung above the television.

(We're sitting in our familiar spots.)

Craft Corner

Door County, Wisconsin, October 1979. Mom's working on a fair-isle, yoked sweater.

Tastes change.

When I finished my first year of grad school, I left Sherman Hall and moved into an apartment. The apartment was a few miles from campus, and I most often biked or walked to classes. I chose the unit primarily because it was furnished. Back then, I didn't think the furniture was nice.

 

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Urbana, Illinois, June 1981. Now, I wouldn't mind having that dinette set.

A Place to Study

Last year, a commenter identified the "sliding bed/couchy thing" from my graduate dorm, Sherman Hall. When pulled out, the bed touched the back of the desk chair.
 
Today, I ran across two photos of my Sherman Hall room:

Urbana, Illinois, September 1980. I took this photo of the room early in the school year; later, a turntable rested on the end table, and stereo speakers stood on the bed's shelf. The knapsack got a lot of use. (Also: that's not a bong, that's a Dansk candle holder. It's in our kitchen now.)

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Urbana, Illinois, September 1980. Mr. Irene and I still use two Bardelli mugs of the same vintage as the one on the desk. The pillow—and the design on the wall in the previous photo—are from the time when I did a lot of needlepoint.

The Rec Room, in Three Takes

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Suburban Chicago, 1985. Dad's monkey photographs and the mountain goat head used to creep out my childhood friends.

Keepsake

When my Mom and her Father, Jake, decided to leave Kaunas, they traveled to the city of Tauragė. They hoped the Soviet army would retreat. The pair had only brought a few items with them to Tauragė because no one believed the Soviets would prevail. When it became clear that the Soviets weren't going to retreat, Jake briefly went back to the family home in Kaunas. He thought he might collect a few more personal belongings that he and Mom could take when they fled to the west.

When Jake got to the house, little remained. Most valuables had been buried in the countryside. Soldiers had looted most everything that hadn't been hidden. Jake, however, found one thing he thought Mom would like to keep. The item was a small landscape that Heddy—the wife of Jake's younger brother, Zigmas—had needlepointed in the 1930s for Mom. Mom carried the piece with her to Germany, and she's had it ever since. 

For many years, the needlepoint hung in the Door County cottage, and now, it's back with us again: