BY HOOK OR BY CROOK...

That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw this lovely old shepherd cradling one of his lambs…and although I knew that “by hook or by crook” means “by any way possible,” I had no idea what shepherds actually used crooks for; a crook looked like a pretty worthless implement to me.

Boy, was I wrong.

Turns out, their purpose is threefold: shepherds uses crooks to carry newborn lambs back to their rightful mothers when confusion reigns in the lambing pen (they cannot touch the lambs themselves, or the mothers will reject the babies due to the scent of humans); they use the blunt end of the crook to prod sheep along the way whenever they are driving them; they hook strays around the leg or neck to drag them back into the fold where they belong.

 My trusty 1902 Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog had a shepherd’s hook for sale—a metal one that fit snugly over a pole (you supplied the pole).

The Montana Shepherds’ Crook was “the best and strongest crook that has ever been placed on the market.” It consisted of a pear-shaped loop with rounded curves on the inside to prevent hurting the sheep. Thousands (they say) were in use in the United States.

          Cost?

          A mere seventy-three cents.

And there was, of course, a Bo-Peep Crook, which was the same as a Montana, but lighter.

For the ladies, I guess; for the shepherdesses.

There was more equipment, too: three different styles of shears—the Western, the Eastern, and the Celebrated Burgon & Ball’s (each in three different lengths of blade); two equally disgusting jars of salve (for those “worrisome nicks”); there was fleece detergent and a sheep dip (for “vermin”).

The best item, though, was the Montana Special Sheep Shearing Machine, “…considered one of the best by a great many of the large sheep growers throughout the United States and Australia.” It had a large wheel, mounted on a solid post; an enclosed gear in a fixed frame that ran the cutters.

          

So, one man turned the wheel, the other sheared the sheep; they got the job done, all right – by hook or by crook!

  

CONTACT SHEET...

Remember SLR cameras?

Film?

Negatives?

And remember contact sheets?

         

Seems like light years ago, but I still have a few buried in a cardboard box in my upstairs closet; this is a four-shot strip from a contact sheet made nearly fifty years ago.

I am twenty-two years old; a long-haired hippie with a gold ankle bracelet (I no longer have all that hair, but I still have the ankle bracelet) and a handsome boyfriend (I still have him in my life, too) who took these shots in, roughly, 1968.

The strip is faded, for sure, and it curls along both long sides.

It’s hard to tell what’s what:

          The first shot is of me and one of my dogs, a total mutt named Ron; he had a good chunk of yellow lab in him, but the yellow was nearly white and so he simply disappears into the background. There’s a coffee cup in the foreground by my arm, and, in my upraised right hand, a Winston filtered cigarette;

         The second is interesting (on the reverse of this shot, David wrote “legs,” which might give you an idea of what was on his mind in 1968); my gold bracelet is on my left wrist (it still is); it’s one of the few photographs of me that illustrates the presence of Native American DNA that showed up in my genetic testing;

         

In the third, I seem to be trying to stand on my head (‘nuff said); and the fourth has some kind of bizarre shading effect—half my face is light; the other dark. Beats me…

Hmmmm.

Maybe it wasn’t a Winston I was smoking—after all, it was the 60s!

IT'S ALL ABOUT HATS...

It’s a rainy day here in Maine, a perfect day to do a little flea marketing (I am not at all sure that “flea marketing” is an acceptable verb form, but I’m determined to use it all the same…).

          Most of the time, my marketing is totally aimless—a mindless wander through the place with stops whenever I see something that catches my eye—but this time, I actually had something specific in mind.

          Used photo albums.

          I’ve got a lot of loose photos, most of them dating back before the 1950s, and I’ve needed some old albums in which to store them.

          This morning, I found two of them; brought them home.

         

The next phase, of course, was spreading out all those old photos; sorting them by date (as best I could because, of course, my parents and grandparents never wrote anything helpful on the back—no dates, no names, no locations…nothing).

So I spent lots of time today trying to identify great aunts and uncles, cousins, second cousins—even a third cousin; lots of family dogs and various backyards, hedges and gardens; grand automobiles, including my father’s white MGB with red leather seats; my parents’ Lark station wagon (one of the industry’s colossal mistakes) and my grandmother’s 1938 roadster which, according to family lore, was a screaming bright yellow; she had a legendary lead foot and sped all over Boston in it.

And I found this picture of my grandmother herself at some kind of lawn event: cocktail party, wedding…something like that…

          …the sunlight is spilling down over her face and shoulders; shadows fall over her hands and arms. She’s holding what looks to be a cordial glass, or a small wine glass or champagne flute…

…she’s wearing a lovely flowered dress; she’s got a delicate chain around her neck, her dressy watch at her wrist, and the most important accessory of the time…

          …a fabulous hat!

FOURS

Four, fourfold, 4-H, four-footed, four-hand, Four Horsemen (of the you-know-what), four-in-hand, four-letter word, four-star, four-wheeler…

…the list goes on and on.

 But this formidable foursome is a special grouping: behold four members of the 1937 varsity basketball team at the May School, 270 Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts (now the Brimmer and May School of Chestnut Hill).

          Top two: Peggy Breed and Edith Fisher; bottom two: M. Harcourt and my mother, Martha Howell.

There were twenty-seven members of the Class of 1937; these four were the powerhouses of their basketball team, although the term “powerhouse” probably meant something entirely different back in those days—no powerhouses would wear collars like that!

         

My mother’s May School yearbook is one of my favorite possessions: a slim, beautifully bound yearbook that gave me a new vision of my mother…

          ...in the Class Vote (senior superlatives), she was chosen Most Animated, Funniest and Noisiest (none of which is news to me).

I’m surprised she’s not grinning in this basketball photo; her senior picture, too, is an amazingly demure image of her, recognizing, I am sure, the seriousness of graduation back then.

But the write-up beneath her picture tells a truer story:

Hats off to Haffy! What would we do without her laughing and whistling in Latin class? If she weren’t around, we should have no one to tell our new jokes or riddles to, since she will always laugh for us, while the rest of our blasé class merely stares at our efforts. Haffy has been with us four years; and although timid at first, she certainly has snapped out of it. Her table manners at school, however, have not passed the kindergarten stage. Water and a spoon are a constant temptation that cannot be resisted. For all her hilarity, she comes out with swell marks and is one of the most conscientious members...

Her major weakness, according to her classmates, was her terrible color combinations.

Again, no surprise there—she favored terrible color combinations well into her nineties!

But here she is in 1937, part of a sports foursome: a senior in high school, eighteen years old and on her way to Smith College…

I might have liked her back then; we might have been friends.

KITCHEN CONUNDRUM...

I’ve got five old mail order catalogues—one from Montgomery Ward, one from Charles Williams Stores, and three from Sears, Roebuck & Company—the oldest from 1902, the newest from 1938.

          I use them all the time for reference. They’ve all got fabulous illustrations, current prices; they transport me back in time.

          The other day, I was looking at kitchen equipment (pots, pans, utensils, gadgets, soap dishes, dishracks, etc.) to get a more accurate sense of a late 1920s kitchen -- and was surprised to see bird cages smack in the middle of the kraut cutters, sausage stuffers, and food choppers.

Bird cages? I thought. Bird cages in the kitchen equipment section?

What’s with that?

So I checked four catalogues: two Sears, the Charles Williams and the Montgomery Ward…all of them have bird cages in the kitchen section!

The 1930 Sears catalogue has three floor cages in with the Sanitary Kitchen Cans and the mop wringers: the Singever, the Aristocrat and the Duplex. The Singever (don’t you love that name?) has a spring-mounted perch for some simulated tree branch action; the Duplex can be used as a floor-mounted or a table-top cage.

Prices run from $3.98 to $5.35.

 Montgomery Ward’s 1929 catalogue tucks the bird cages in with the canning and bottling supplies, washboards and washtubs.

One cage, the Sturdy Footed Cage, comes in three colors: all bright brass with either red trim, green trim or blue trim!

And has “perches, swings, unbreakable cups, tassel and wire mesh seedguard…”

The cage is $2.75; the stand is an additional $2.65.

Last, but by no means least, Charles Williams Stores comes in with a selection of cages beneath the fruit and vegetable presses, the potato mashers and the waffle irons: A fancy white enameled cage with colored lining; a “handsomely japanned” with two perches, swing and two feed cups; a new style “oblong” cage with or without guard.

Anyway, back to the conundrum: Why were all the cages in the kitchen sections of the mail order catalogues?

When I looked in the 1930 Sears catalogue, I found the answer: an oblong block of display art featuring a housewife wiping her dishes; a bird cage (with canary) suspended in the kitchen window.

“The Canary Bird,” the copy reads. “Our Ever Cheerful Companion”

Of course!

The kitchen: the warmest room in the house and the center of activity! 

GOOD SHIP VENUS...

I’ve got lots of old family photographs—they’re in boxes, folders, old clasp envelopes; some are even pasted neatly in leather-covered photograph albums, thanks (mostly) to my paternal grandmother, who was an Organizer of the Highest Order.

Sometimes the Sepia Saturday prompt photo sends me scurrying off in search of a specific photo; those are easy blogs to write and post.

          But sometimes my response is not so specific; sometimes I chew on the topic for days, trying to figure out what, exactly, in the prompt photo is gnawing at me, scratching for my attention.

I needed four days, but I figured it out, finally.

It’s the model sailboat…

…consider, please, the Good Ship Venus, shown here in East Boothbay, Maine in the very early 1900s.

This was the boat the Gould boys—the brothers Gardner, Richard, Allen, Prescott and Howard—sailed during their summer vacations, during the dog days of August away from the stifling heat of Boston and in the cool waters of Linekin Bay.

I’ve got several photos of Venus, each with two or three boys on board, but none taken close enough to distinguish individual faces…I’m pretty sure one is my great uncle Allen—something about the cut of his hair, the shape of his head—but I can’t be certain.

But the boat itself is very much like the model in the Sepia Saturday prompt! It’s similarly proportioned, has the same lovely lines, the same rigging.

Just a little bigger.

Nothing to wear but clothes...

Nothing to wear but clothes

To keep one from going nude.

          --Benjamin Franklin King, The Pessimist

Nothing to wear, indeed!

          Just look at these 1902 Sears, Roebuck & Co. clothes for young boys: Wash suits of linen, sateen and chambray; striped and boxed waists (shirts) of linen lawn, percale, India and French linen…a veritable shopper’s delight of fashion!

Sailor suits were all the rage, and here’s a spiffy blue and white Pencil Striped Percale Wash Suit, made from an “extra heavy narrow blue and white striped percale,” with large sailor collar of blue sateen and a “white duck shield and monogram in the center.”

All this for 75 cents.

Or here’s another sailor suit, with a large collar “trimmed with a neat pattern of insertion” and a “cord effect pique shield.” The cuffs of the waist and pants (at the knees) have white pearl buttons and shaped sleeves. “A most handsome summer suit,” it reads.

          This one’s selling for $1.00.

Some of these suits were made from “crash,” a cheaper fabric made from undyed yarns. Linen was used for the warp yarn, while the jute was woven in for filler – these suits were coarser, rougher; they probably itched like fury!

Suits of this crash fabric were, however, much cheaper—an entire suit might sell for only 35 cents.

Older boys had more sophisticated choices—a military style cut that was a step up from the sailor motif. “One of the handsomest white waists you can possibly get no matter what price you pay,” reads the copy for this white linen lawn waist. It had a Bedford cord effect, and was “trimmed with heavy ball pearl buttons and double cuffs.”

          A steal at $1.00.

But here’s my favorite waist (and my favorite model): a Little Lord Fauntleroy number made from white lawn (linen) with “large sailor collar, neatly embroidered” and double cuffs.

          I can’t believe any self-respecting boy would ever parade around in this number…it’s flouncy and fluffy and totally inappropriate for a game of Fox and Chase, or Base Ball, or Halley Over, or Hoops…

          …but it’s only 50 cents.

I think I’d rather go naked.