FIVE-DOLLAR FINDS

I admit it: I’m a flea market/antique store hound.

There’s something about prowling through a shop or wandering the aisles of a flea market that intrigues me. It’s the element of sweet surprise, I think; about the finding of something unexpected, something that absolutely speaks to me on a level I’m not quite willing to analyze – what is it, after all, that compels me to sort through the leftover objects of other lives, other times?

I have a self-imposed limit on those days: I buy things that cost no more than $5.00. – if it’s tagged at $6-10, I might try to haggle it down to $5, but that $5.00 is a firm limit!

Here are three of my favorite $5.00 items!

I found the baby head in a shop in Brunswick, Maine. She was looking straight at me from the end of a tall bookshelf; her eyes were open, penetrating, and I was so startled I jumped a foot off the floor, then burst out laughing.

I bought her on the spot.

$5.00 on the nose.

And what a nose! She’s just lovely when you look closely, even through all the cracks and imperfections. She now lives on a bookshelf in my living room (once a bibliophile, always a bibliophile!).

Some people are totally freaked out by her, others grin in delight...

The little camera came from the Rockland area. I picked it up to look at the detail work on the lens – it was heavier than I anticipated; turned out to be solid metal. The bellows don’t move, of course, but it’s intriguing. Imagine my surprise when I turned it around and found that it’s really a pencil sharpener – you insert the pencil through the bottom, and the sharpening blades are inside the box.

And then there’s this metal cage. I spied it about four years ago at a huge flea market in southern Maine – one of those places that has at least one hundred tables arranged in rows; it’s so enormous you can spend an entire afternoon walking the aisles!

I saw the cage near the front, but didn’t want to carry it around with me, so I took a chance – I left it there and went on.

It was still there when I finished, which I took as a positive sign from the Flea Goddess, so I handed over $4.50 and headed home with it.

Sometimes I wonder what I’ve done – whatever would I do with this thing? It sat outside on my back porch for a few weeks, and then I stuck the pot of ivy inside...

...the rest is history.

TRANSFERWARE

In the late 19^th-century, my great-grandparents built a summer home in East Boothbay, Maine. These days, fifth-generation family members still vacation there – one from as far away as California – to beat the heat and spend time lounging on the back porch watching the ebb and flow of the Atlantic in Linekin Bay.

These days, we recycle our glass and haul our trash to the landfill, but in my great-grandparents’ day, a lot of stuff – especially bottles and broken china – were loaded onto a skiff, rowed offshore and unceremoniously dumped into the ocean. But the constant tug and pull of the tides, the churning of waves, causes great upheaval on the bottom of the bay, and bits and pieces of glass and china come back to shore; what my great-grandparents dumped is all coming back to us!

Most of what we find is English transferware, hugely popular in this area in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  Master patterns were etched in copper; color was applied, and then printed onto thin tissue paper; the paper was then applied to the ceramic piece, where the wet ink “transferred” the colored image to the ceramic. Colors included blue (most expensive), brown (most common and least expensive), black, green, red.

The repeating border patterns were applied to earthenware pieces in sections – sometimes nearly perfectly, but sometimes not – I’ve found pieces where the borders have occasional jags where the transfer was not applied accurately.

Some of the central patterns, found on whole plates, bowls and platters, were amazingly detailed – country estates with elaborate houses and outbuildings, men and women strolling through gardens, cattle drives down tree-lined rural lanes, fields of livestock. Village scenes appeared, too, and cottages with thatched roofs; also city-scapes, with taller buildings, trains, horse-drawn public transportation (great on a platter, but a tough sell on smaller items) and bridges. There was a whole series of Biblical images, too!

Manufacturers? I’ve found several, but a few notables are Staffordshire, Johnson Brothers, Spode, Ridgway, Adams, and Clews.

I’m happy enough spending long periods of time prowling the shoreline for the smaller pieces – oddball shards of plates and cups and salvers and teapots that have washed up over the years. My cousin Bob, though, goes for bigger stuff: when we have exceptionally low tides, he puts on his nastiest pair of sneakers and mucks around in the mud below the seawall; he’s found some great chunks of things over the years.

Gives whole new meaning to the term “transfer station,” doesn’t it?

JOHNSON'S ANODYNE LINIMENT

 Anodyne (adj.) – That which has the power of mitigating pain (from Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, 1770).

Anodyne – a painkilling drug or medicine; a soothing application.

Before the 1900s, an anodyne was, simply, a drug that people used to soothe pain by lessening the sensitivity of the brain or nervous system.

In 1810, Abner Johnson (1786-1847), an enterprising physician from Waterford, Maine, formulated, bottled and sold Johnson’s Anodyne Liniment to his patients.

And, lo! it worked! (Of course it worked: the two main ingredients of the liniment were morphine and alcohol, and they both certainly make the brain less sensitive!)

Word spread, and soon Johnson moved to Bangor, where he established his business. His son Isaac Samuel Johnson took up the reins, and by 1881, had packed up and headed for Boston, where he opened his liniment business – I.S. Johnson & Company – on Custom House Street.

In the late 1800s, newsprint was the best medium for display advertising, and Boston was a hub of shipping – both by sea and railroad. Johnson made use of both, and soon advertisements for Johnson’s Anodyne Liniment popped up in newspapers from coast to coast.

The Gardiner (Maine) area newspaper advertised Johnson’s Anodyne Liniment in the Reporter-Journal, listing an amazing array of  alphabetically listed ailments, including asthmatic distress, bites, bronchitis, bruises, burns, chafing, cholera, colds, colic, coughs, cramps, diarrhea, frost bites, grippy cold, lameness, nasal catarrh, scalds, and pain and inflammation in any part of the body, “used both eternally and internally.”

In the Los Angeles Herald, May 3, 1878: “...Persons who have become thoroughly chilled from any cause, may have their circulation at once restored by taking into the stomach a teaspoonful of Johnson’s Anodyne Liniment, mixed in a little cold water, well sweetened.”

From The Newfoundlander, February 11, 1873: “...Used internally and externally, will relieve the worst cases of....Cramp or Pain in the Limbs, Stomach or Bowels, Lame Stomach, Spitting of Blood...for all Diseases of the Throat, Lungs and Heads...the Bite of Mosquitoes...

In 1893, The Cambridge Tribune declared “Generation After Generation Have Used It. Dropped on Sugar, Children Love to Take It!”

Advertisements appeared in the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier (Bangor, Maine), The Carolina Watchman (Salisbury, North Carolina), Weekly Journal (Fairfield, Iowa), Willamette Farmer (Salem, Oregon), and The Clarendon News (Clarendon, Texas).

“Every Mother Should Have It In The House!” proclaimed the advertisements...and apparently every mother did, at least into the early 1900s...

...and if it didn’t cure what ailed you, I.S. Johnson & Company also produced Dr. Parson’s Purgative Pills (yikes!) and Sheridan’s Cavalry Condition Powders for your horse...

HIP-HIP HURRAH!

In that lovely Sepia Saturday photograph of Conway Castle in Wales, there’s a gentleman standing beside the door in the castle wall – he’s on two canes, and I’m willing to bet that he’s dealing with what I’ve been dealing with for a number of years! He’s less fortunate than I, though, for back in those days, replacing bad hips was far beyond standard medical practice.

As for me, I’m sporting a new one; my right hip was replaced on March 18.

I don’t remember much: I remember being in pre-op with David, my Official Coach (that man is going to heaven for his support and care).

I remember getting undressed and johnnied; the nurse checking my vitals (and commenting on how stable my blood pressure was!); the start of my IV in the back of my left hand. I remember a visit from my surgeon, who marked my right hip, gave me a grin; the anesthesiologist’s check-in, his assurance that he would guide me out and back in again.

And I remember a quick kiss from David, then being wheeled through the passageway to the OR. I turned my head and looked out the window at the pigeon sitting on the outside sill at Maine Medical Center in Portland, its head shimmering purple and green in the early morning sunlight.

          “Oh, look!” I exclaimed. “A pigeon!”

          “That’s not a pigeon,” said the OR nurse, “that’s a mourning dove.”

I do not remember my reply (I was on my way “out”) but apparently everybody else in the place will remember it for a long time.

“Mourning dove, my ass!” I hollered enthusiastically...and was gone.

David was there when I woke up; he was there all afternoon as I struggled out of anesthesia – not ill at all, but just unable to come completely awake for a very long time. Every time I opened my eyes, he was there – sitting in a chair next to my bed, reading, dozing, working a crossword, patting my left foot.

He went home at 6:30 or so; came back the next morning at 9:30 to take me home. Gone are the four days in the hospital followed by a week in rehab – I was in the hospital for approximately 30 hours! This is the new routine: a total hip replacement and hospitalized for 30 hours! Astounding.

I had a friend who stayed with me 24/7 for the first four days (I slept for 12 of each 24-hour period), then another friend who spent days with me while I navigated nights by myself. Have neighbors who checked in on me first thing each morning and last thing at night; they made trips to the grocery store and ran errands.

And they put my socks on for me, at least until I had my 23 staples removed and could lean forward without them pulling at my incision. And that next morning, my first shower in 12 days – I can’t tell you how wonderful that was!

The hardest things?

Not being able to reach down to the floor (if I drop something, I poke it into a corner and leave it there until somebody comes to visit). Carrying things is impossible while using a walker; much easier now that I’ve graduated to a cane – at least I have one hand free! And everything requires such enormous effort: getting in/out of bed, getting dressed, moving across the floor.

But I’m gaining; making progress each and every day. I can stand upright for the first time in three years: I am nearly ½ inch taller! And my right foot, which used to point outward, now points straight ahead!

I’ve got a long way to go – exercises for strength and flexibility, learning to drive and climb stairs again – but I’m lightyears ahead of that poor gentleman in Alan’s Sepia Saturday photo.

I’m a hipster, a hippy, a hippo, a hipcat.

I’m a hip-chick, a hipper-dipper!

Hip-hip hurrah!

BELLY-TIMBER FOR THOUGHT...

A Dictionary of the English Language: in which The Words are deduced from their Originals, Explained in their Different Meanings, And Authorized by the Names of the Writers in whose Works they are found.

That’s the real title – I photographed it so you’d believe me!

The author was Samuel Johnson, A.M. and the publication date of the fourth edition was MDCCLXX – 1770. The covers are full leather, quite distressed; the boards scuffed. The owner was an Eben. Everett, and he signed his name on the title page in November, 1820.

I bought it at a flea market 180 years later for $10.00.

Every now and then, I sit down with a cup of tea or coffee and read a few pages of Johnson’s dictionary. It can be tough sledding: instead of using an “s” when it appears within a word, these funny “f” characters appear – it slows you down when you’re reading.

For example, try this definition: “loathsome. Caufing fatiety or faftidioufnefs.”

Or, “insteep. To foak; to macerate in moifture.”

Say that eight times fast (faft)!

I read it for the words – for the sheer pleasure of finding old words we no longer use, words we have dropped and/or dismissed in favor of more appropriate words; words that have completely different meanings now. I read it to find bizarre Scrabble words: I recently dropped “quaid” onto a Scrabble board, hit a triple word square (for a bijillion points) and then defended my opponent’s challenge by hauling out my 1770 dictionary. He nearly fainted!

Words.

Here are some good ones (and I’ve changed the funny f’s):

to accloy  – to fill up, in an ill sense

belly-timber – food

cornage – a tenure which obliges the landholder to give notice of an

invasion by blowing a horn

to daggle – to dip in water

dangler (noun) – a man who hangs around women

denodation – the act of untying a knot

featheredge – boards or planks that have one edge thinner than another

gargarism – a liquid form of medicine to wash the mouth with

to handsel – to use or do any thing the first time

incony  -- unlearned, artless

jannock – oat bread

kirtle – an upper garment, a gown

lackbrain – one that wants wit

to maffle – to stammer

nidorous – resembling the smell or taste of roasted fat

outwell – to pour out

pappy – soft, succulent, easily divided

quaid – crushed; dejected; depressed

to rud – to make red (think about ruddy cheeks!)

simnel – a kind of sweet bread or cake

target – a kind of buckle or shield borne on the left arm

understrapper – a petty fellow

vaccary – a cow house

wafter – a passage boat

yelk – the yellow part of the egg

A couple of them are familiar, in an odd sense: lackbrain, rud, understrapper, yelk; we think we’ve seen them before, and their meanings are clear. But others are foreign, mysterious; the only places you find them today are Shakespeare plays and poetry by Milton or Donne.

Just for fun, sprinkle these into your everyday conversations. Ask your baker for some simnel; tell that annoying neighbor that he’s an understrapper; and, ladies, avoid that dangler at the office...

...let the games begin!

NOTE: I’ll be away for a couple of weeks; when I come back, I’ll have a new hip!

SEPIA SATURDAY #167

“You might want to go with boats, water, steamers, piers...” Alan Burnett writes below his Sepia Saturday prompt photo...

Here’s the passenger boat from Boston steaming into Linnekin Bay in East Boothbay, Maine, headed for the public landing on Murray Hill in about 1900. The tide is low, but there’s still enough water for the steamer; there are a couple of sailboats moored in the bay and even a fishing boat tied to one of the floats on the right.

Lots of boats, but it’s that steamer that lifts my heart!

Every summer it carried my grandfather’s family from their home in Boston to Maine; it also transported my grandmother’s family on the final leg of their journey from Tiona, Pennylvania to their summer house on the same shoreline– a trip that involved trains from Tiona to Boston, then the steamer from Boston to Maine.

My grandparents met here in East Boothbay; they courted here, married, then spent every summer of their lives here, bringing their children and, eventually, their grandchildren. We still own a house here – there have been five generations of us to summer on Murray Hill!

This is the old Gould summer home; the young boy sitting on the top step is my grandfather. The house looks amazingly the same in 2013, although there are houses packed close on either side of it now.  

So there you have it: boats, water, steamers, piers.

I’m on board with it...

Check out what other Sepians offer this week:

www:http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com

NO CURE...

It all started Thursday – that annoying tickling sensation in the back of my throat, that funny cough and the slight sniffle – but today, it’s the Real Deal.

I’ve got a cold – not such a big event in this day and age. After all, my local pharmacy has an endless supply of OTC medications from which I can choose, and most of them do a fairly good job of relieving my worst symptoms.

Back at the beginning of the 19^th-century, though, things were different. Illness was not taken lightly, and even the common cold made news. Here are a few 1901 East Pittston (Maine) social notes in the Reporter-Journal, the nearby Gardiner newspaper:

Bad colds are raging among the children in this vicinity. Some have not been able to attend school for a few days as the colds are so severe while they last. They come on sudden and some have been as well as usual and attended school one day and be sick in bed the next day.

It seems the adults were falling like flies, too:

Miss Ada Thompson came home from Gardiner, Saturday, where she has been recently employed, and is confined to her bed with a bad cold.

And Ada’s neighbor, Charles Henry Crocker, was next:

C.H. Crocker has been confined to the house for about a week having taken a sudden cold but is now able to be about again.

There were a few cold medications on the market, but I’m not at all sure about how effective (or safe!) they were.  Bayer was making aspirin then, so at least Ada and Charles Henry could take something to relieve the headaches and body pains. (I’m reminded, though, that there were only cloth handkerchiefs – no disposable tissues – can you imagine the laundry issues? And don’t you love the instructions for using the Nasal Tablets? “In solution for gargling the throat or snuffing up the nostrils.”)

At any rate, there’s a lesson for us all here.

When people got colds one hundred years ago, they were a lot smarter than we are today. When they got sick, they went to bed, and they stayed home until they were better.

We should pay closer attention to that, I think.