Bug Collecting Is Not for Sissies

Sissies don't like insects. They especially don't like June bugs that bumble and scrabble around lights in the early summer. When I was about 10 years old, I didn't want to be a sissy, so I decided to LIKE June bugs. Come evening, I'd get hold of a bug by his middle and hold him up so his legs were working in mid air, or I'd let his pincer pinch my finger and he'd be stranded there. In case no one ever told you, June bugs are very stupid. Like the proverbial teen-aged boys, they only think of one thing. I wasn't what the beetles were looking for, so they caused me no harm. [When I went looking for an image of a June bug, I discovered that the beetle with the pincers was a stag beetle. Wicked looking beast, isn't it?]

Getting acquainted with June bugs led to my bug collection. Somewhere I must have seen how real etymologists mount their collections, and I got together some sort of frame with a glass and some cotton to pin the dead bugs to. It was pretty interesting, until nature took it's course. No one told me that dead things, no matter their size, are prey to smaller things. When all those little, icky white worms appeared, I suddenly lost interest in that hobby and the whole kit and kaboodle went into the trash.

I still like bugs, but I now insist that most of them stay outside my house.

I have watched for hours as an ant carried a bit of potato chip from my patio toward his hole. So far I have never had enough patience to follow an ant all the way home though, but I'm young enough that I might manage it some day. I taught all my kids to enjoy pill-bugs that roll up into a nice little gray ball when you disturb them. And I got my husband and brother-in-law to watching the paper wasps as they came to my flower bed, gathered up a ball of mud and flew off. After awhile they had the wasps named. There was the efficient one, and the workmanlike one, and the idiot one who never seemed to get a decent ball of mud collected. Wasps are interesting to watch...as long as you stay far enough away from them.

Now, I'm not a sissy, but I do have to admit that two kinds of bugs send chills up my spine: centipedes and earwigs. Just thinking of them makes me cringe. And you can't kill a centipede with your garden trowel,  because if you hack it in two, it just grows a new whatever-you-cut-off. I wonder if scientists have studied this trait to see if it could help in regrowing limbs or fingers or nerves.

Spiders aren't bugs, but for all intents and purposes they might as well be. I can't say that I want a spider crawling around on me, and I give them plenty of space, but I don't let anyone kill the spider by the back door that kills untold hundreds of bugs and leaves their carcasses for me to clean up.

One summer I had a jumping spider as a pet in the window over my kitchen sink. I had noticed that there weren't any fruit flies around the ripening tomatoes that I set there. Then one day as I was doing dishes, I saw the little striped guy come out of the corner, whirl around until he sighted in on a fruit fly, and with a mighty leap, jump and catch the fly. After that experience, I have treasured jumping spiders and have passed the tolerance on to my children. There was a dime-sized one in the sunroom last fall. I hope he is just hibernating and will be back when the weather warms up.

And everyone has marveled at the web of the orb-web spider, like Charlotte. The precision engineering that goes on within that little creature that allows her to construct her web is truly astounding.

One of our kids had a pet praying mantis one summer. We named him Manfred and kept him in an aquarium with a glass lid. I never realized how hard it was to stun a fly instead of killing it until I tried to get living flies for Manfred to eat.

I can never tell the story of Noah and the Ark without wondering why he let two mosquitoes on the boat. ...or two fleas....or two flies. I suppose they serve a good purpose, but I'm glad no child has ever asked me that question.

As a hobby, bug collecting has been interesting and informative and harmless. But I must admit that it's much better to collect them by picture and memory than by mounting them in cases. And now adays I am much more of a sissy than I was at 10.

Sewing - First, Last and Always

My favorite hobby:

My first experience with a needle, thread and fabric was with my Aunt Corrine's rag bag and darning needles. She must have been desperate to find something to keep the three of us busy (Joe was too little then to join in the project.) I don't suppose we made anything recognizable, but we really had fun. I think Joy and I were about five or six and Herman would have been three or four.

I think we played with that rag bag more than once, and probably progressed to smaller-eyed needles. What we all remember most though is the time one of us carelessly 'lost' a needle in the easy chair. Joy's dad, my Uncle Eldon, plopped down in that chair to read the paper, and popped up just as fast. He was MAD! That was the only time he spanked us, and I think he spanked us all....including our friend Marchia who had the misfortune of playing with us that day.

The only person who could always find a needle in an easy chair was my husband. To this day I am VERY careful that I don't lose a needle, because it will ALWAYS be he who finds it.

My first real sewing project was a little dresser scarf to embroider. My Grandma Hammond was always embroidering pillow cases and scarves and she must have got this project for me. I still have it around somewhere. The sewing is bad, but I'm sure it looked good to me. I never finished it.

Through my youth I was always designing clothing for my dolls. There was a variety store across the street from my house, and calicos were about $.29 a yard. I would buy a quarter yard of several of them and then try to make pretty dresses. It was about then that I discovered that pants were not that easy to make!

At that time (early 50s) we girls all took home ec. My teacher was Elsie McCluggage at Woodruff High School, and she had us all make a card-table sized cloth out of Indian head fabric trimmed with hemstitching. For some odd reason, I chose to use yellow cloth with brown thread for the hemstitching. Those have never been my favorite colors, and I've always wished I had chosen something prettier. I got a B on the project because my knots were too big. It's been 51 years and I'm still using the table cloth.

My mother was the managing type, and always wanted everything done right. I would never let her teach me to sew, because I didn't want her to tell me what to do. I eventually decided to make myself a housecoat WITHOUT HER HELP. I'm sure she thought I was crazy, but I did it. I got a pattern that included piping and buttonholes, and I got the whole thing finished. I used that housecoat for years. It was some kind of symbol of triumphing over my mother.

For my graduation from Bradley University, my gift was a new portable Slant-Needle Singer Sewing machine. It was and is wonderful. I would be using it today as my major machine if it weren't for the fact that it didn't have the zigzag feature. No machine ever made better buttonholes.

I made all my maternity clothes and clothes for all the kids as they came along. Eventually I made daughter Robin's wedding gown, which taught me that I didn't know diddly squat about sewing a hem in chiffon.

Over the years I have made innumerable quilts. I like the hand piecing, but doing the actual quilting is too big a job, and I get it done by others. I've also made many large banners and such for our church, as well as a banner for the Sewing Guild, and I'm always surprised to see they still use it.

My most recent projects are purses made from silk ties, snuggly slippers, aprons, and girls' skirts made from old jeans with a ruffle of pretty cotton to make them flirty. Oh yes, I also finally made a sock monkey and have taught several sock monkey making classes. Several of my students had never sewn a lick, and it it's always 'interesting' to teach someone to knot a thread and how to make a running stitch without poking the needle down one side, pulling the threat taut, and poking the needle back up the other side. I never knew how much my left hand does when I'm sewing until I tried to teach someone the basics.

Today I have an awesome fabric stash. A year ago I thinned the herd by one third, but you'd never know it. I love those tubs and boxes of fabric! Going through one is like a trip down or up memory lane, and I'm sure the mental exercise has staved off Alzheimer's for me.

As any sewer can tell you, there is nothing as rewarding as completing a project that is so well done that everyone thinks you bought it. And it's so easy to forget all the projects that didn't turn out that way.

I Love Cribbage

Cribbage is kind of a simple-minded card game, but it has several distinct advantages.

1. It is usually played with two people, so you don't have to wait until you get a foursome together,

2. It takes about 45 minutes for a game (unless you're playing with a pro who can "skunk" you in about 20 minutes).

3. Just about everyone has a cribbage board, and if the official pegs are missing, you can use matchsticks --which everyone eventually does because the pegs get lost after a short time.

4. Even kids can play it as soon as they can count up points, and

5. I grew up thinking it was an adult game, and therefore I really wanted to learn how to play it.

When my folks visited my cousin's folks, Father and Aunt Corrine invariably got into a game of cribbage. They always ended up playing three games to make sure they had a winner and not just a lucky fool. We kids would go in and out the back door and see them sitting there playing, and we just knew they were having a good time. Sometimes the neighbor lady, Phyllis, would come over and she and Father would duke it out.

When my cousin Joy and I were about 7 we started playing cribbage, but I'm sure we didn't know any of the finer points of the game. Still we counted up our points, "Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six and a pair is 8." We pegged around the board just like the big people did....and we had fun!

My husband never grew to like the game. I guess that's because there isn't much strategy to it...unless you were Father, Aunt Corrine or Phyllis. Then it was cut-throat.

I tried to teach the game to my grandson Alex when he was having trouble with math. He never got the hang of it, and was bored with having to go around the board twice. He only played it to please Grandma, I think.

Maybe if I live long enough to live in a "senior citizen's home," I'll find someone there to play cribbage with me. I'll hang onto my two cribbage boards, just in case.