Ow. I felt that.
I’d picked up a piece of hand-thrown pottery yesterday. It’s something I do, rescuing pieces that were made with love and skill, and putting them to use. In this case, it was a nice fat little round jug in a pretty cobalt blue with traces of purple glaze. Just what I wanted for serving out gravy!
I’d brought it home, and was showing it to my son.
“It’s signed and dated.” I flipped it upside down and showed him. “See, Judy Smith in 1988.”
“Wow!” and I have to tell you, dear reader, there was no sarcasm in his tone. He really was impressed. “That’s really old!”
There are days I’m reminded forcefully I’m no longer young. I just wasn’t expecting that to be over the gravy jug!
Although, it wasn’t made as a gravy jug. No, I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be something else when Judy made it.
I’d been having a lovely chat with the ladies running the antique shop where I bought it. Now, they were what I’d think of as little old ladies, with silver hair and sweet southern accents. I commented ‘I don’t think these two things go together’ but they pointed out the two were taped up nice and tight. So I bought it, and came home. I wanted the pitcher part.
When I was home and in good light, I realized that yes, they probably were intended to go together. I’d initially thought the glaze was different, but it’s just fired off into more of a lavendar than the blue of the pitcher. Chemistry in the kiln is a strange and wonderful thing. I suspect this was intended to make fresh-squeezed orange juice right into the pitcher for serving.
It can’t have worked terribly well. Which is why it’s ‘so old’ and yet in perfect condition. I’d guess it’s been on a shelf since it was given to someone, or bought. Which is not what I will do with it. I’m smoking a brisket next weekend and will be serving it with a jus gravy. Which is why I needed a gravy boat!
Now, I’m going to wobble off to rest my old bones somewhere and tease my child. If I’m so old, maybe I can’t take him shopping today… muahahaha!
Comments
11 responses to “Eh, sonny?”
Laughing out loud here! What I think is funny is that something made in 1988 was being sold in an antique shop!
And that’s a pretty jug/pitcher, but you are probably right — that juicer most likely didn’t work all that well. Try it sometime, though!
Oh, I’ve given up on antique shops for actual antiques. Just classier flea markets, usually, with curated weird random stuff to look at. Of course, I also don’t shop a the high end ones I can’t afford. It’s fun, you never know what you’ll find!
After a little digging, I found the obituary of the potter. Now I love the jug even more, she sounds sweet! https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/phoenix-az/judith-smith-7473410
So your jug started life in Arizona! She sounds like she was a very talented lady — so cool that you were able to find out more about her!
Mice. Men. Plans.
Oh, what a nice find! I read her obit and thought she would be a neat lady to be friends with! So many creative interests in her life must have kept her quite busy, indeed.
Cedar, how can you think you’re old? I was 40 when you were born! Also, that date looks to me more like 1958 – if that’s correct it is REALLY old. I graduated from high school in 1954! (But then it probably looks different in person.)
The pitcher/ juice catcher is lovely!
I discovered recently that I am older than a few of my students’ parents. This is . . . discomfiting. In my mind I am a high-mileage 25 years old.
I tend to think the same about my age. And my eldest will be 24 in January. This is just *wrong*!
The parents of my Dragonette’s friends went to school with my oldest two (some actually shared classes, some were just in school at the same time). I’m not sure how that happened because I’m not old.
1988 is in my living memory, but it really is “so old” if you consider how different the world was then.
The Berlin Wall was still up.
Most of the great jazz musicians (post-Big Band) were still alive, including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Cab Calloway.
Terrorism was something that happened in another hemisphere of the planet. (Yes, yes, I know, the Weather Underground in the 1970s, but that was always treated in the media like it didn’t count, because it was from the left. Also, they had basically stopped by 1980.)
The World Wide Web was a year from being invented.
The only super hero movies that anyone counted as good were Superman and its first sequel.
Comedians tried to be funny, and offending sensitive Karens was counted as a good thing.
Video tapes and CDs were still relatively new technologies, at least for most people.
Hartley was right: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”