More Will Be Revealed

These are photos of my baseball blanket, which covered my bed for most of my youth. It was not particularly soft, and the red satiny piece at the end was fraying and torn, but I sure did love that thing. To prevent me from falling out, I would get tucked so tight into my bed under it that I could barely turn over. I don't know why I held on to it for so long -- at some point, my mom passed it over or I rescued it, and it's moved multiple times in a plastic bin, perhaps awaiting a nostalgic restoration? Alas, it's time had come, and now some non-profit that does curbside pick-ups of family detritus has it. Farewell, baseball blanket. And I think that guy was safe in that picture, even though the ump says out. I guess it was a force play...but how interesting is that for an illustration? (I never questioned the ump's call as a child.)

Also a casualty of our recent organizing/cleaning, nostalgia-be-damned binge was this lovely brown comforter, which I made by hand in 7th or 8th grade home ec class. More than 20 years old, and I don't remember actually using it as a blanket, except at my post-divorce furnished bachelor shithole apartment in Portland. And after 20 years, I discovered I'd left a pin in the batting (spelling?)...I suppose not surprising for a 12-year-old seamster (masc. of seamstress?). Interesting choice of fabrics -- purchased with my mother at a local fabric store. I got a bit more adventurous during a later home ec class (senior year of high school), when I and my friends made "jams" -- those colorful print shorts that were all the rage at the time. What is it about the smell in fabric stores, by the way? Is it the bolts of cloth that just naturally have that scent? I can almost conjure it up now. Whew.

If I see a homeless guy down the street in Oakland wearing one of these blankets, I wonder how that will feel? Better him than sitting useless in my garage, I guess.

Not even 9:30, and I'm off to bed. Big week ahead.

// posted by Bill @ 8:57 PM