Untying the knot . . .
Everything ends up in the spare bedroom it seems, at least until I have time to find a place for it. When I returned from PA after my mom passed away, I brought back lots of my parent’s things. They have mostly ended up in the spare bedroom, but I have started going through stuff and finding a place for things. Anyway, I had a strange experience with one of the things today. There’s a story behind it all, in more ways than one. This nostalgic writing is rather long, maybe not of interest for everyone or anyone. If you care to read it, the rest of the story is behind the cut
Laurie was way less than a year old. One day a man from Olan Mills knocked on the front door of our little apartment in Oil City. (Yes, they went door to door back then.) Being a naïve, new wife/mother and not at all used to the persuasive ways of the traveling salesman I welcomed in him and listened to his spiel. He was good at his job and soon talked me into the package plan of all these photos of my child for the next 18 years. And if I had more children, they would be included, too, at the same price.
So I signed the contract with mixed emotions and butterflies in my stomach, with all its fine print, but I didn’t tell Pete about it right away.
I should mention that we didn’t have much $$ back then and lived payday to payday most of the time. When we got married, Pete made $66 gross a week working as a surveyor for the highway department and our rent was $55 a month. When I say, we didn’t have an extra penny to our names after we paid the bills, it was very true. We had to usually figure out what we could let go until the next month, so we were always behind in something.
Needless to say, when I finally told Pete about the picture plan, he wasn’t too happy. In fact, he was downright shocked, angry and couldn’t believe how I could do something like that when we had no money to spare. I told him it was easy payments of something like $3 month for 18 years. It sounded like so little when put that way, but it all added up to over $325, which was like a small fortune to us. Well, finally things calmed down and by the time we got our first photo of Laurie (and it was so nice), all was forgiven and right with the world.
Skipping ahead:
In the small print of the contract it said: If you moved out of the state, the balance was due at that time. We never thought we’d move, but . . . well, five years later, we did move to Colorado. My parents were not happy about us leaving and taking their two little granddaughters, to say the least. I had already gotten a few pictures taken of both girls. Then I was offered a bonus of a big collage of five photos of the girls. Oh, it turned out beautifully and I loved it so much! But out of some guilt or something, I gave it to my parents as a present just before we left, hoping that would appease them and make everything okay about us leaving.
Of course it didn’t, but they took the photo and framed and hung it in their home after we left.
Well, we paid off the balance to OM from the paltry amount of extra money we had saved before we left, not because we wanted to, but because we had to. At the time of the payoff, I asked OM how I would get the rest of the pictures due me and they told me the plan would be honored in any state, just look in the phone book and call them wherever we were. Wrong! After we moved, got settled in and it was time for the next photos to be taken, I contacted OM in Denver, and guess what?!--they would not honor the contract and so my pictures stopped then and there at age 2 & 5. The collage was the end.
I have to say here that my parents have had the collage photo over the last 40 years hanging in their home, and every time I went there, I was genuinely so happy they had it.
Okay, skipping ahead to the present time . . .
I sadly took it off their wall and brought it home with me last month. I wasn’t sure where I was going to hang it until today. When I turned it over I noticed they had a small piece of silky twine tied in big knots at each of the hanging rings on the back. It had stretched out so much over the years and was very visible above the picture frame where it hung, so I thought I would replace it with a wire that I use on my photos.
Here is where the strange and wonderful thing happened. As I was untying these huge knots, I seemed to go somewhere else in my mind and felt so strongly that my fingers were untying this knot of twine that either my mom or dad had touched and tied right before they hung the picture.
It’s hard to explain or even believe, but I felt their fingers there with mine helping to untie the knot. I was in present time and then back 40 years in time. I saw my mom’s hands and then my dad’s hands, working with the slippery twine when they were first tying the knot. I was picturing them standing there together and I kept wishing I knew what they were thinking about then. It was so special a feeling, like a dream, I can’t even begin to describe it.
Okay, there a little bit more. I got the wire on and when I turned it over, I saw a piece of dirt under the plastic I’d not noticed before. So when I slid the backing off, I found six pieces of cardboard they’d used for filler. They were dated and in good condition, just a little bit yellowed around the edges. I loved this and tried to imagine where they got these nice big pieces of thin cardboard. I wonder about things like this. And now, I’ll never know.
So here’s all the pictures I took to document this experience.
Here I’d already started to untie the huge knot. I didn’t get the idea to photograph anything until I had partially untied it and started feeling the presence of my mom & dad.
The cardboard backing
the date--6-70
And finally, my beloved collage has come full circle.
P.S. the dresses Laurie and Tracy are wearing were made by my mom. She made so many of their clothes when they were little.
Laurie was way less than a year old. One day a man from Olan Mills knocked on the front door of our little apartment in Oil City. (Yes, they went door to door back then.) Being a naïve, new wife/mother and not at all used to the persuasive ways of the traveling salesman I welcomed in him and listened to his spiel. He was good at his job and soon talked me into the package plan of all these photos of my child for the next 18 years. And if I had more children, they would be included, too, at the same price.
So I signed the contract with mixed emotions and butterflies in my stomach, with all its fine print, but I didn’t tell Pete about it right away.
I should mention that we didn’t have much $$ back then and lived payday to payday most of the time. When we got married, Pete made $66 gross a week working as a surveyor for the highway department and our rent was $55 a month. When I say, we didn’t have an extra penny to our names after we paid the bills, it was very true. We had to usually figure out what we could let go until the next month, so we were always behind in something.
Needless to say, when I finally told Pete about the picture plan, he wasn’t too happy. In fact, he was downright shocked, angry and couldn’t believe how I could do something like that when we had no money to spare. I told him it was easy payments of something like $3 month for 18 years. It sounded like so little when put that way, but it all added up to over $325, which was like a small fortune to us. Well, finally things calmed down and by the time we got our first photo of Laurie (and it was so nice), all was forgiven and right with the world.
Skipping ahead:
In the small print of the contract it said: If you moved out of the state, the balance was due at that time. We never thought we’d move, but . . . well, five years later, we did move to Colorado. My parents were not happy about us leaving and taking their two little granddaughters, to say the least. I had already gotten a few pictures taken of both girls. Then I was offered a bonus of a big collage of five photos of the girls. Oh, it turned out beautifully and I loved it so much! But out of some guilt or something, I gave it to my parents as a present just before we left, hoping that would appease them and make everything okay about us leaving.
Of course it didn’t, but they took the photo and framed and hung it in their home after we left.
Well, we paid off the balance to OM from the paltry amount of extra money we had saved before we left, not because we wanted to, but because we had to. At the time of the payoff, I asked OM how I would get the rest of the pictures due me and they told me the plan would be honored in any state, just look in the phone book and call them wherever we were. Wrong! After we moved, got settled in and it was time for the next photos to be taken, I contacted OM in Denver, and guess what?!--they would not honor the contract and so my pictures stopped then and there at age 2 & 5. The collage was the end.
I have to say here that my parents have had the collage photo over the last 40 years hanging in their home, and every time I went there, I was genuinely so happy they had it.
Okay, skipping ahead to the present time . . .
I sadly took it off their wall and brought it home with me last month. I wasn’t sure where I was going to hang it until today. When I turned it over I noticed they had a small piece of silky twine tied in big knots at each of the hanging rings on the back. It had stretched out so much over the years and was very visible above the picture frame where it hung, so I thought I would replace it with a wire that I use on my photos.
Here is where the strange and wonderful thing happened. As I was untying these huge knots, I seemed to go somewhere else in my mind and felt so strongly that my fingers were untying this knot of twine that either my mom or dad had touched and tied right before they hung the picture.
It’s hard to explain or even believe, but I felt their fingers there with mine helping to untie the knot. I was in present time and then back 40 years in time. I saw my mom’s hands and then my dad’s hands, working with the slippery twine when they were first tying the knot. I was picturing them standing there together and I kept wishing I knew what they were thinking about then. It was so special a feeling, like a dream, I can’t even begin to describe it.
Okay, there a little bit more. I got the wire on and when I turned it over, I saw a piece of dirt under the plastic I’d not noticed before. So when I slid the backing off, I found six pieces of cardboard they’d used for filler. They were dated and in good condition, just a little bit yellowed around the edges. I loved this and tried to imagine where they got these nice big pieces of thin cardboard. I wonder about things like this. And now, I’ll never know.
So here’s all the pictures I took to document this experience.
Here I’d already started to untie the huge knot. I didn’t get the idea to photograph anything until I had partially untied it and started feeling the presence of my mom & dad.
The cardboard backing
the date--6-70
And finally, my beloved collage has come full circle.
P.S. the dresses Laurie and Tracy are wearing were made by my mom. She made so many of their clothes when they were little.