Quirky Vistas: practical

While preparing to post the images of what I unearthed Saturday from collections I found displayed in front yards and strewn about carports, I was thinking about why it is I find such joy in the simple utilitarian items that have, in times past, found their way home with me...

I just needed these grass clippers last night!

Now, mind you, if people around here sold vintage relics of the kind many of you seem to score each weekend, I'd be thrilled to find similar antiquities rich with tradition, beautifully chippy, worn and swathed in patina or crusted with rust. However, most of the time, the fare here is a little less exciting. Every now and then I snag a cool relic, but when those are unavailable for the pickin', I'm happy to find joy in useful beauty, especially if it's caked with nostalgia and I can get it for a song. There's nothing quite like having something you need when you need it. So many of the utilitarian items I've found have come in very handy!

Speaking of songs... my love for all things minimal and practical was instilled in me early. I was a TV-obsessed child (even with only 3 channels, one of which was mostly static), and my love of "simple" came by way of commercials such as the one below from Van Camps Pork & Beans. Back then commercials were populated with catchy little jingles that would stick in kids' heads, ensuring that their parents would never be at a loss as to how to spend their money. Those commercials also fairly well defined the times. Sometimes they defined us. They certainly defined me.

To this day, I still sing this one.

As an aside...does anyone else think this sounds like B. J. Thomas singing? It also sounds just like his song

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. Hmmm...I wonder which came first.

This song lolled about in my head, and I have an especially vivid memory of it traveling along with me to my Aunt Vernie's house one Summer. During Summer vacations we took roadtrips to Grand Rapids to visit family and friends we had left behind when we moved to Florida, back when I was two.

There I was on the front porch of Aunt Vernie's (my mom's oldest sister) home taking in the wonder of the new surroundings. I was intrigued because there were steps, which were in short supply in my Florida world! I thought that was so cool...(back then we would have said "Neat!") I was enthralled by the wonder of them, and I developed a fascination for steps and stairs, probably from those youthful trips to the other-world I discovered in Michigan.

Aunt Vernie's house had a walkway leading up a sloped yard that felt like a huge hill to this girl from the flatlands. Steps took us up to her porch. There was what seemed like a magical endless staircase that led to an upstairs apartment she rented out. The wood floors (being as I was from the land of terrazzo and concrete) were utterly foreign to me and produced an odd, hollow sound when we walked across them, unlike the solid floors of home.

It was in some ways like this home I found online here.

Wonder of wonders, there was even a mysterious, shadowy basement (a fascinating unknown in my short life) to which we were led by more steps toward an odd smelling adventure of discovery and the quaint sights one might find in such a captivating place. Mystery abounded. Aunt Vernie's basement came complete with easels, her paintings and odd basement miscellany that brought a beautiful curiosity to everything about that time and place.

This is Aunt Vernie about 20 years later in the late 80's.

In addition, Aunt Vernie's vocabulary was peppered with quirky words that made my sister and I exchange glances and giggle...she said things foreign to us, like "cockeyed" and "cockamamie", and described things as "delightful", which while causing us to smirk as children, endeared her to us as the years stretched on. We absorbed those engaging moments, her brilliant smile, comforting personality and her creativity. They settled in and took root in our hearts, leaving us with sentimental memories of times spent with her.

There I was on her porch, family mingling inside, the boys running about the yard, the breeze - wonderful, the scent in the air, sweet... and it was dinnertime. When I asked (probably hollered) the age old childhood question through the screendoor: "What's for dinner?" and heard the words "baked beans" in the lineup, the Van Camps jingle welled up inside of me, right on cue as prescribed by the advertisers who had planned for just such a time and place for their plot to unfold. This plan, through the years, by way of every form of media, has become more pronounced, more sinister and more effective than formal training could ever be. At the time, however, this particular media voice was benign enough, and it landed in just the right spot to hitch a ride with me for life, finding it's way to both my inner and my vocal voice more often than I could begin to count.

There was a special sense about that front porch moment at Aunt Vernies. There I was singing "Simple pleasures are the best..." feeling as if I belonged in a commercial. I was probably between the ages of 7 and 9, outside on a neat front porch (another anomaly because where I was from, porches were screened and in the back of the house) in an intriguing neighborhood with treelined streets and a sidewalk. It was kind of magical in that summer vacation/freedom way. Some of that sentiment stuck as I absorbed the glory of the carefree place and time and connected those sensibilities to the words of the song.

I remember feeling a little special, perhaps a bit proud of myself because I knew all the words to the Van Camps song. It gave me the impetus to sing with abandon, hoping I'd "accidentally" be noticed for my impressive memorization ability. If not, at least maybe I'd find a good excuse to bring up the fun fact of my prowess for all who would, no doubt, find my talent enthralling.

Somehow, perhaps catapulted from that moment and the ensuing needs that coerced me to make do in years and life to come, I became a lover of all things beautifully uncomplicated. I found my way toward the joy of the humble and useful, even managing to live decidedly content as that little song clicked on in my head, even at the mention of the words "simple pleasures". Each time it did, I was connected to sweet memories and those simpler times when the world was exciting, carefree and full of discovery.

This is me with my two of my brothers, two of my sisters and part of our Florida neighborhood gang where simple pleasures defined our lives and our times. I'm the mostly hidden one who is peeking out from the middle - it's the only old pic I had on my computer. Wouldn't you know my scanner isn't functioning!

Yes, when "beautiful" is in short supply, "useful" does just fine. More than fine sometimes. There is a certain delight there...and maybe that's what takes me on Saturday junk excursions with a longing to unearth treasure and wonder from the discards of another's intriguing life. Today I continue to look for something to connect me to moments as meaningful as those I discovered at Aunt Vernie's house in Michigan where I sang pork and bean jingles with abandon outside on her porch. I was loving life and discovering treasure in "all the little things that make you smile and glow".

Not much has changed.

Perhaps you'll understand, then, why sometimes the junk I cram into the back seat of my car, or for which I sort through grungy boxes, is often rather unremarkable at first glance, utilitarian in fact, and useful rather than glorious and glamorous.