Danish Ephemera

The area labeled "Ephemera" is my favorite at the Case Western Reserve University book sale. 

Mr. Ginley has discovered its joys, too. And we spent at least an hour just in that one section of the gym where the sale was held.

We picked up a lot of flotsam and jetsam. One of the gems I found was a book of postcards. The title of the book says "Til Erindring om Kjobenhavn." I didn't really know where it was from. Or even when they were printed. But I was so intrigued, I took a chance and figured I'd investigate later.

First off, I discovered the writing on the cover is Danish. "Til Erindring" means "For Remembrance." And "om Kjobenhavn" means "About Copenhagen."

It makes sense, of course. Still, there is no indication of date. My best guess is that it was printed circa the turn of the last century. One postcard features a boulevard with what looks like horse carriages. I didn't see any motor vehicles. As to the dress of people, the only thing I could glean from the few blurry bystanders was a top hat or two.

The only other clue was a flyleaf in the middle of the book that said, "Eduard Otto & Co." with ornate borders and lettering.

Alas, I may never know the true origins. Still, it's been fun to peer into the past and consider my newfound treasure. The photographer, long passed, would have no way of knowing how the world would change. Two world wars would crumble Europe's social status quo. Machines would arrive and take over. Strolls down the boulevard would become quaint. And one day electronic devices would take control of everyday social life.

I decided to go through the postcards one by one and see if the subject was still around. Here are my findings:

Det kgl. Theater (aka the Royal Danish Theater) was built in 1874 and is still going strong.

Amalienborg Palace: Home of the Danish Royal Family. Built in 1760.

Rosenborg Slot: Renaissance castle built in 1606.

Thorvaldsens Museum: Dedicated to Danish neoclassicist sculptor Albert Bertel Thorvaldsen. The artist spent most of his life in Italy. When he returned to his homeland, he was given a hero's welcome. Thorvaldsen died in 1844 and is buried in the courtyard of the museum, which was built in 1837.

Marmorkirken (officially Frederikskirken): A Neo-Baroque marble church with a grandiose dome that was inspired by St. Peter's in Rome. Construction began in 1749 but soaring costs halted the project. Thanks to the benevolence of financier CF Tietgen, construction eventually resumed and the church was consecrated in 1894.

Borsen: 17th Century Stock Exchange. This popular building is renowned for its distinctive spire, which is shaped like four dragon tails twisted together.

Kvoesthusbroen: I couldn't find a definitive result (in English), but the photo is of a pier with boats docked around it. 

Langelinie:  The name is from the 17th Century. It was originally a military area and later became a park and promenade. I suspect the building shown is the original pavilion, which was constructed in 1888 and replaced by a modern structure in 1958. 

Orstedsparken: A public park that was inaugurated in 1879.

Vesterbros Passage med Frihedsstotten: Vesterbros Passage is a section of Copenhagen, and the Frihedsstotten (aka "The Liberty Memorial") is an obelisk commemorating peasant reforms in 1788 that abolished serfdom.

Tivolis Facade: Entrance to the Tivoli Gardens. 

Badstuen ved Frederiksborg: "Badstuen" means "bathhouse" – in this case, one associated with Frederiksborg Castle, which was built in the 17th century by King Christian IV. It burned down in 1859, was rebuilt and then reopened in 1882. 

I hope you've enjoyed this little jaunt through Copenhagen. I don't know if any of you have been there, but I think it unlikely I'll ever visit, so these postcards will have to do. 

Pagenhor! (Goodbye till next time!)

Cast of Character

It wasn't until years after the incident that my sister told me what my Dad said the day I broke my wrist on the playground at school when I was in fifth grade.

The only photo of me with a cast (bottom row)

"She couldn't just break her wrist. It had to be a compound fracture. And they had to call in a specialist to fix it."

To be fair, I knew he was just blowing off steam. My Dad was genuinely worried about me. And as a parent, I can understand the financial burden it placed on him.

But falling in spectacular fashion was not my intention. And if given a choice, I'd rather not have had a compound fracture. (Or any broken bone, for that matter.)

In fact, considering the doctor didn't use any anesthesia, it's difficult to imagine why the cost of repairing my arm was so much more expensive. But doctors will be doctors, and they have to pay for their Mercedes somehow.

Thinking back, I find it difficult to believe that if I'd broken my arm today I'd be treated with the same "suck it up" attitude I got as a child. I remember vividly that they sent my Mom out of the room and down the hall while they fixed my wrist.  

A compound fracture meant that not only did my wrist break, but the bone separated. The procedure they used to fix the break took advantage of all the advancements in science to that point. 

To wit...the doctor held my elbow, the nurse grabbed my wrist and they yanked in opposite directions until the two parts of the bone shifted. Then they squeezed them together to realign them.

Again, this was done without so much as a bullet to bite on. 

The reason they sent Mom away became apparent very quickly. I screamed. Loudly. Again. And again. 

After the deed was done, Mom returned, looking ashen but relieved that I had not been murdered after all. At that point, Dr. Demento and Nurse Ratched were applying the plaster cast to my arm. It went from the top of my hand to about six inches above my elbow. My arm was out of commission for the next six weeks.

Alas, the accident happened shortly before school let out for the year, so my normal summer-fun activities were severely curtailed. Plus, I had to relearn basic activities like bathing and dressing. And new ones such as how to scratch an itchy, scaly arm in a cast using a drinking straw.

A couple of weeks before I was to have my cast removed, I was playing tag with the neighborhood kids. I whipped around a little too quickly and clocked Donna in the head. Thankfully, there was no lasting damage, but my mother chewed me out vociferously for quite some time – mostly because I had been running around willy-nilly, disobeying her strict orders that I engage only in sedate activities. 

"What if you'd broken that cast? Do you know how expensive it would be to make another trip to the emergency room?

And so, we came full circle. 

Fortunately, the cast was removed on schedule. Aside from having a shrivelly, pale, disgusting appendage for a time, all was well.

Until about a year later, when my younger brother broke his thumb. 

Lucky for him, it wasn't a compound fracture.

Waiting With Click-Baited Breath

Of all the things my mom had to worry about in her lifetime, click-bait wasn't one of them.

And I believe that I can safely say she'd be the first to admit she was totally okay with that.

There are many things Boomers have to deal with that our parents never did. Contrary to what the youngsters may tell you, we're a whole lot more savvy than we've been given credit for. Sure, I'll admit to having my son help me resolve issues with my phone. And it did take me a bit to get up to speed on downloading apps and such.

Still, Boomers have lived through an accelerated technological era, so I think we should be forgiven if it takes us a few tries to catch up.

For example, I learned to type on a manual typewriter. My first real job was typesetting on a then-state-of-the-art computer that electronically imprinted my copy onto film one line at a time. When I got to J.B. Robinson Jewelers, I was among the first to use the Wang word processor, which predated Excel and required you to type in code to set up the columns to print a spreadsheet. At Sterling, I learned Quark, which was a program the designers used to do layouts for signs and catalogs. A few years after that, the internet came along, and I was working on websites, then emails. Today I write articles and content for various websites using the tools and tricks of SEO (search engine optimization). 

All-in-all, I'd say that's quite a ride. So when youngsters get all high and mighty about the current generation being so much more tech savvy than their elders, I just roll my eyes.

I will admit there are some stereotypes that stick to me like peanut butter on the roof of your mouth. Yes, I do Facebook. And I am susceptible to click-bait. I don't believe the random ads like the one that said SAS Shoes was closing and everything was 90% off (lies, lies and more lies). But I simply can't resist certain articles, most of which come from sites "suggested for me." 

For example, this week a FB site called Cinema Shorthand Society had an article about Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and many other cartoon characters. Blanc had a car accident that nearly took his life. He was in a coma for 21 days, and only came out of it when his doctor whispered in his ear, "How are you feeling today, Bugs Bunny?" To which Blanc replied, "Just fine, doc, how are you?" I verified the article on the MeTV website. 

Thanks to a site called Classic Retrovision Milestones, I learned that yesterday was rock-'n-roller Suzi Quatro's 72nd birthday. Quatro, who had a recurring role in Happy Days as Leather Tuscadero, has racked up more than 50 million album sales during her bass-playing career.

Of course, I know I'm not the only one who takes the bait. There are plenty of friends' re-posts that take me off the beaten track. For example, I got sucked into an article from Psychology Today about why some people have such a bad sense of direction. That one hit awfully close to home, but it also provided me with some valuable insights as to why Mr. and I are always at odds when it comes to mapping out new routes. If you're similarly destination-challenged, you can read the article here. 

Well, enough rambling for today, I need to move along with my busy day. 

Oh, wait, look at how stinkin' cute those otters are. I'll just watch this one video...

Let's Wait and Pee

Scratch, scratch, scratch in the litter box. Meow, meow. A few droplets of pee. 

Maggie Lou repeated this routine throughout the day. By the next morning, I knew I had to call the vet.

As it turns out, she has something called "Feline Idiopathic Cystitis." It's caused by anxiety.

"Have there been any major changes in her routine?" the vet asked.

Nope.

"Is she the only cat in the house?"

Yes.

"Have you changed her diet?"

I gave her a little dry food the other day, but it's never been a problem before.

In fact, the only change I could think of is that we spent an hour or so moving boxes around in the closet. She freaked out a little at the time, but I hadn't thought too much about it.

The upshot was, our cat was suffering from anxiety that interfered with her potty routine. 

"What has she got to be anxious about?" queried Mr. Ginley. "She eats, she sits in the back window, ack acks at the birds, moves to the front window, sleeps there, kicks a toy around every once in awhile and sleeps some more. What's so stressful about that?" 

Pondering it further, he asked, of no one in particular, "Does this mean I shouldn't give her airplane rides anymore?"

Whatever it was that put our cat's anxiety into motion, the upshot is that she's on a new diet, painkillers and something to relax her ass. "Pill or liquid?" asked the vet. The last time I crushed a pill and put it in Maggie's food, she stopped eating. 

"Liquid it is," I replied.

So, I got to chase her down and stick a plastic syringe in Maggie's mouth. Let's just say I was not her favorite human.

The next step is to acquire a plug-in air freshener that dispenses kitty pheromones to calm her ass down. 

With any luck, it'll help calm me down, too.

After seeing the vet's bill, I sure could use it.

Hi Lilies Hi Lo

I will never be the gardener my mom was. And yet, she did instill in me a love of florals that's stayed with me all my life.

As I schlepped the garbage out to the curb this week, I noticed the lilies of the valley had come up on the side of the house. The prior owners planted them, so I can't claim responsibility for their appearance. Also, as I admitted, I'm no gardener. So when they arrived, it was amidst grasses and a few weeds. 

But there they were.

When I was growing up, my mom would let me take small bunches of flowers to grade school. She would wet a paper towel and wrap it around the base, then cover the towel with foil to keep the blooms fresh. I'd put them on my desk and enjoy them all day. It seems such an odd thing, that sometimes I wonder if I dreamed this. My siblings can confirm or deny.

In any case, as I noticed the little flowers valiantly poking their heads up, I decided to clip a bunch and put them next to my writing table so I could enjoy them as I worked. I hadn't remembered how fragrant they were. As the day went on, their scent filled the room.

Such a lovely aroma from such teeny flowers.

Later, when my work was done, I pondered the idea of something so diminutive making such a big impression. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere. 

But I was content just to enjoy them while they lasted and leave the metaphors to others. 

Happy Spring!

P.S. Hi Lili Hi Lo is a song Leslie Caron sang in the movie Lili. I had it going through my head when I wrote this. (My mind is a strange and occasionally wondrous thing.) The song was written by Walter Jurmann and Bronisław Kaper (who was Jewish, born in Warsaw and fled Europe during the Nazi occupation). The pair ended up in Hollywood, where they enjoyed successful careers writing music scores for movies.

Trunk Show

When I was small, my sister, Diane, fashioned an elephant out of mud she obtained from our backyard. Surprisingly, the little guy has held it together for more years than anyone would have imagined, although it has crumbled away part of its trunk.

Photo Courtesy of Rocky River Public
Library and the Cowan Pottery Museum

Maybe this is where my fondness for elephants was born. In any event, I love the huge, trunked creatures. So when I happened upon one particular pachyderm recently, I was intrigued.

As I mentioned in an earlier article, the Rocky River Public Library has a collection of Cowan Pottery. On the day of my visit, one of the featured pieces was a ceramic elephant, designed by Margaret J. Postgate. Alongside it was the inspiration for the piece, a soap carving.

Alas, doesn't take much to send me right down the rabbit hole. In this case, it was a bar of Ivory Soap.

Curiouser and curiouser. What was with the soap? 

My artsy friends may already know this, but I didn't. In 1924, Proctor and Gamble held a competition of carvings made out of Ivory soap. As it happens, there's something in the molecular composition of Ivory that makes it uniquely suited to carving. (It resists shearing or somesuch.)

Postgate entered her Elephant into the contest in 1925, and it became part of a traveling exhibition that made a stop at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The success of the competition spurred P&G to continue running the annual soap carving contest, and Postgate submitted entries year after year.

By-and-by, P&G asked Margaret to write out instructions on how to carve each of her critters in soap. These how-tos were immortalized in children's publications like Boys Life, giving youngsters the opportunity to carve their own frog, elephant or other animal out of Ivory soap.

A few of these soap carving renderings were transformed into ceramic objets d'art at the hands of Cowan Pottery. The elephant in the photo shown here was created in 1930. Keeping to the elephant theme, Postgate also designed a pair of bookends. (One elephant is pulling, the other is pushing.) She did a religious piece on the three Mary's (Jesus' mother, Mary Magdalen and Mary, Martha's sister.) And Postgate was responsible for a whimsical pair of polar bears that Cowan produced.

As a result of her success with soap sculptures, Postgate was asked to carve models in soap for various projects, including pieces that were cast in porcelain (Lenox) and bronze  (Gorham Manufacturing Company). She was also commissioned to do soap renderings for architect Francis Keally.

Soap sculpture went on to become ever more popular, acquiring a place in New York City hobby shows in 1935. These days, soap sculpting is part of art education.

I thought about attempting to make one of the soap sculptures following Postgate's instructions. 

But in the immortal words of Bones on Star Trek, "Dammit, Jim, I'm a writer, not a sculptor."

I may have just taken certain liberties with that quote.

Who Was Margaret J. Postgate?

The artist (not to be confused with the poet Margaret Postgate Cole) studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her family moved to Manhattan in 1910, where she continued her studies at Cooper Union, the Art Students League of New York and the School of American Sculpture. Her home was in Brooklyn, NY, where she resided until her death in 1953 following a long illness. Margaret never married or had children and left no surviving relatives, according to her New York Times obituary. (I wasn't able to dig up anything else about her life after her soap carving days.)

Diane's now-ancient elephant
(photo used with permission)

A Crack of the Spoon

I thought my mom's method of corporal punishment was unique. Until I saw a meme on Facebook.

And there it was, in all its menacing glory: The Wooden Spoon.

Apparently, I wasn't the only child who got whacked with this kitchen utensil. In fact, all my mother had to do was reach for the silverware drawer and glare at me, and I'd promise to do anything she told me to, no matter how onerous. I was so traumatized by the wooden spoon, my mom seldom had to apply it to my posterior. And when she did, it stung but didn't cause lasting pain. I think was more the idea of her punishing me than the actual blow that brought me to my knees.

To be honest, the worst punishment my mother inflicted was guilt. She'd look me in the eye and say, "I'm disappointed in you," and I'd crumble like a stale Pecan Sandy.

Years later, my mom said she almost felt bad about threatening me with the wooden spoon because I went all Sarah Bernhardt on her. I think she had a hard time trying to sustain her anger and not crack up. 

When it came time to disciplining my own kid, Mr. Ginley – as the primary caregiver – did most of the heavy lifting. While spanking was occasionally inflicted, he found other methods that were just as effective, especially as Joe got older. 

One of the classics was sending Joe to the "Bad Boy Corner." We later dubbed it "The Wailing Wall," because our son would cry his heart out and wail about the indignity of being punished for whatever his transgression was. When it came time to paint the wall, there were actually tear streaks that had stained the paint. If we were modern parents, we would have been mortified. Being old-school, we just laughed and painted over it 

My sister, Denise, tells a story of my Mom when she was in the nursing home in the final years of her life. Dementia had taken over, and her memory was spotty. One day, a staff member came in while Denise was visiting and tried to get Mom to respond to a memory task. Mom shut her eyes, as the woman rambled on about how she knew mom cooked for her family, and then asked if she remember this.

She produced a wooden spoon.

Mom refused to open her eyes or respond in any way. Denise stepped in and said, "Hey, Mom, remember how you used to bang the wooden spoon on the counter, and Barb would beg and plead and say, "Don't hit me, I'll be good!" 

Mom kept her eyes closed. But chuckled.

Once a Mom, always a Mom.