Way Back When-sday

This is a picture of my Mammy (on the right) and Aunt Betty working on a quilt. They used to make quilts all the time. I can remember the bags of cut out pieces of fabric -- squares and triangles and rectangles -- Mammy had at her house. I also remember the closet full of quilts and blankets in the attic room. I used to love staying up in that room in the winter. Those quilts were so comforting to bundle up beneath.

The pattern they are working on in the picture above is called The Hole in the Barn Door, although it also has about 20 different names according to the 11th picture down on the right-hand side of this Web page. There are multiple variations of every pattern, many named something different depending on what part of the country they were made in.

I have a couple of quilts that were made by Mammy and her sisters. One of them I don't use. I'll take pictures of it later. And one of them I use all the time. I wrote about it a few years ago in a column I wrote for a newspaper. If you'd like to read it, click on the picture at right to enlarge it.

An experiment ...

Flung apart by a sudden and unexpected upheaval of the world beneath them,
they reach out blindly, eyes closed tight against the pain.
A familiar touch or smell or voice would do wonders right now.
Desperate and lonely -- they call into the darkness around them and wait for answers.
Here I am. Where are you?
Here I am. Where are you?

The answers never come ...
Here I am. Where are you?
No answer ...
Here I am. Where are you?
No answer ...

But each holds on to hope ...
Here I am. Where are you?

Each holds on to the past ...
Here I am. Where are you?

Each holds on to their yesterday.
Here I am. Where are you?

Because yesterday, everything was normal.
Here I am. Where are you?
Here I am. Where are you?

They hold on to hope ...
Because yesterday ... everything was normal.

...................

Connecting words

I wrote the above column in August 1995 while working as a sports reporter and columnist with the Cecil Whig in Elkton, Md. Click on the picture to open it bigger in a new window to read it. I wrote it after going to a sailing regatta in which Special Olympics athletes and their partners competed.

I didn't have a short story to put up right now (sorry Mara), but I'll get around to it.