Sunday 15 October 2017

Moments in Time

"Toys We Played With"

Serries #3


Does anyone know what a wringer washer is?
This was a toy I was given to play with at age three, my how times have changed! However, little boys and girls are still interested today in copying what moms and dads are doing, replicas are still being made of lawn mowers, stoves, dishes and the like. 
 Ah, but my little wringer washer was special, you could hook it up to a hose and wash clothes, where my clothes are I don't recall! Yes times really have changed since I was three, we were given so much freedom to roam and we played in the buff!


The home behind me in this little painting has sparked some very fond memories. We lived there on Daytona Street in Springfield, Massachusetts until I was about five years of age.
One warm sunny day it was my job to keep an eye on my little eight month old brother John, which I loved to do, it was like playing house with a baby doll, only he was real! He was placed in a playpen on our huge veranda in the front of our house. I giggled and grinned at him through the playpen bars and watched him coo and giggle back, when all of a sudden it started to rain, I frantically ran into the house and exclaimed; "It's raining, John might get rusty!"



This portrait of me was very difficult to paint, for some reason I kept painting my Grandmother Josie, but after five attempts it finally looked like me at age three. First I painted this picture in my watercolour journal and then I painted it on a canvas with acrylics. To my delight more early childhood memories began to flood back. 
There are no memories of siblings or parents, other than my brother John, but the feelings of joy, security, happiness and contentment was felt in that home. 
Behind our house there was a fence that I managed to squeeze through and play with Linda Lambach. We were the same age and shared the same birthday, and had several birthday parties together. Birthday parties I loved but her scary brother who gave very hard birthday spankings I did not! 
Oddly I can still remember her kitchen with huge creamy yellow cupboards with black spring hinged door knobs, perhaps the cupboards were huge because I was so small. 
Oh my, I can just taste the corn fritter pancakes lathered in maple syrup her mother made. For years I have hunted for a recipe that tastes like those scrumptious pancakes with no avail. If anyone has a good corn fritter pancake recipe, please share! 
Funny the little things we remember.

"Many moments in time come and go, treasured moments stay."