I'm back from Chicago. I wanted to post some photos, but I was using my mac laptop and unless the photos get on it from my phone by themselves, I never seem to be able to save them on the laptop. So this week, I'm adding a couple of photos. The first is the sidewalk in front of my building. The weather was still on the warm side, but apparently it didn't last. I saw photos from my neighborhood on Halloween and there was snow on the ground. As a kid, I used to hate it if I had to wear a jacket over my costume. Snow would have freaked me out.
The second photo is the red school house in Indiana. It was fun to go inside and see what it looked like compared to what I'd remembered from when I was a kid. It has long since changed owners and the merchandise is quite different. The only thing that was familiar were some candy sticks for a mere twenty-five cents each. I have to admit that I like my imagined version of the layout better than the actual one. In my new series, it will have a yarn shop and a tea room.
I also enjoyed seeing the countryside around it and near my property. The sandy road I used to walk on when I was a kid is paved now. The 1,000 acre farm that bordered one side of the road has been whittled down and there are houses where there used to be fields of soybeans. The other side of the road used to be all trees and wild meadows with flowers that smelled like peanut butter. Now, there were a couple of houses and then an area as I remembered, but now it is a nature preserve.
When I did those walks butterflies used to accompany me. There was a small bridge over a creek that looked just right for fairies to play. Then I would walk to the red bridge that went over the river that goes through my land. It always seemed big to me. I went to see it this time and the red bridge is gone. There are just some gray metal guard rails. The river seemed smaller and less grand without the bridge work. I would have liked to have stopped and looked longer, but we had places to go.
And it is connected to writing. I wrote my first very story there when I was eleven. It was about some fairies that living in the loaf shaped mail box who played in the water by the creek bridge.
My land is on the right. The cottage is long gone and the spot where we grew tomatoes and picked wild blackberries is a forest of trees. So many wonderful memories.
11 comments:
New series????????
Good morning -- What fun memories -- sounds like a wonderful place. I'm looking forward to the new tea shop/crochet books.
I'd mentioned I ordered a couple of kits for afghans. Wish I hadn't!! The ripple granny afghan seems to be okay, but the rectangular granny that starts with a c2c granny square is a mess -- easy crochet but three full pages of instructions!! Trying to keep track of each row is ridiculous. The directions are not at all clear -- one section says to crochet on three sides but it doesn't say whether that is two long sides and one short, or two short sides and one long. I'll probably do a lot of improvising with that kit. On the happy side, the Christmas hat I made turned out really cute -- it was well-received.
It's only 59 degrees here this morning -- nippy cool. There are a few trees turning golden but it's mostly always green here. With the intense heat of the summer, there are also lots of dead trees and cacti to be cut down. Some of the giant saguaro died from within and collapsed -- very sad-looking.
Enjoy your day, your writing and your crocheting.
Marjenann, it won't be out for awhile. It's the next thing I will work on when I finish writing the next Yarn Retreat mystery. The new one is about a L.A. crochet artist who inherits an old red school house that housed a yarn shop. The locals convince her to add the tea room.
Patty, its lucky that you can figure out how to use the kit bypassing the instructions that came with it. The kit I used to make the lion was great. There were written instructions and videos available on line.
The chilly temp seems like a huge change from those 110 degrees you had over the summer. Sad about the cacti and trees.
I can imagine the Christmas hat was well received.
Sounds like a delightful research and retrospection time, Betty.
Linda, I have so many happy memories of the area. They all come to life when I go there.
I love the picture of your neighborhood. That looks like a fun street to walk. I'm going to keep that image of the red schoolhouse in my mind so I can picture it when the new series starts.
Chkntza,
It is an interesting street to walk. With the exception of one new house the two block stretch has been the same since I was a kid. Because it looked the same, I would occasionally have this thought that maybe it was all a dream and I was really just seventeen.
I have a painting of the school house. The area where we had our cottage attracted a number of artists and writers from Chicago.
The street I grew up on was taken for the Santa Monica Freeway so there is nothing left. But I can still picture it in my mind and I have a lot of memories growing up there.
Chkntza, it must feel strange when you pass over where your street was, like there is still a ghost of it.
It is still so vivid in my mind that it seems like the neighborhood is there somewhere below the freeway.
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