Block 39

It gets to me

that when I make some blocks,

I just have to smile.

Block #39

was like that.

Hollyhocks . .

a blessing each spring.

The seemed to grow

up and down

all of the alleys

in the town

where I grew up.

One of my fondest memories

is watching Mary and Grandma

make "dancing dolls"

out of a

fully unopened flower

and and 3 buds.

This is something

I have passed on

 to many a young girl . . .

the art of making

Old Fashioned Hollyhock

Dancing Girls.

(This little doll is similar to the ones we made.

Ours had a toothpick where the arms are

with small buds covering them for the arms.)

The new Hollyhocks

don't cut it.

They look like carnations

growing on a corn stalk.

(This is the

New Fashioned "pretender"

to the throne.

A Pox, I say

A Pox on your

Chrysanthemum-ness!)

Give me

an old fashioned Hollyhock

in my backyard

and in the spring,

when they bloom,

the world

is a much better place.

Dear Lord,

You blessed me with a Grandma who loved me and a Mary who stepped right up to the plate when Grandma died. They both instilled in me my love of crochet and Mary actually let me "quilt" on one of the quilts she was making. I can't remember if I ever cut noodles on her dining room table, but I sure did "steal" enough of them as they lay there drying :0}

How many children in our hectic world have an older generation around who will sit on their front porch and swing with them, who lets you burst into their home, unannounced, because that's what good neighbors do . . .well, I did have to learn to say, "Yoo-hoo, anybody home?" as I opened the front door.  (To this day, I still do this in a few homes . . family and two friends . . . it just seems right . . and they do it to me too. Maybe it is one of the remnants of being from a small town where "everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came" to quote the title song from Cheers.)

Summers spent on the front porch swing at home and at Mary's, sitting in the back yard between the houses, trying to keep cool, learning how to make Holly Hock Dancing Dolls and wondering why I never did pick up the fine art of weaving clover flowers into crowns?

Lord, you amaze me at what you exposed me to and I am thankful everyday of my life for that exposure.

Amen

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