A Visit With Aunt Betty

            What is it called when the opportunity comes to look into the eyes of a close relative and the decades fade into oblivion? The hands of the person are also the hands of her mother and her brother (my dad). What is that phenomenal occurrence? Is it a form of time travel? Is it transference? Or, is it a soul-satisfying emotional connection, comfort, and a rare privilege?

            My aunt is 94 years old, born in August 1921. She’s the only remaining family member of my parents’ generation. She is three years older than my dad who died in 2001. We Dansbys have the same brow, nose, chin, shape in the face. I wonder, should I live to be her age, if I will look like my Aunt Betty?

            When she realized that seated before her, indeed, was her niece, her brother’s daughter Margaret Jane, all the way from Arkansas, we embraced. I felt the arms of my family wrap me in love and heard them say, “I’ve missed you so much.” I cried; the tears were spontaneous. I was not sad, except I miss my dad so much and I felt his presence in his sister's arms, the arms that enfolded me.

            Sometime during our conversation, which was more like a monologue with response on her part, she commented, “I’ve been looking forward to your visit for such a long time.”

           

               She has been my female hero, always. When, as a child, I learned she was a nurse, I wanted to be a nurse. She convinced me I did not. “You don’t want to clean up slop jars, darling girl. And you have to give people shots…” she continued. She’d convinced me with ‘slop jars.’ The point, though: she was independent, savvy, smart, beautiful, and a powerful woman who was, I believed, making her own way in the world. I wanted to be like my Aunt Betty.

            While she hated the strict nuns at St. Vincent’s School of Nursing in Little Rock, that school was her ticket and she punched it with relish. She was happiest, her daughter and I have discussed, when she was an Army Nurse, stationed in various areas in the South Pacific during WWII. After her tour of duty, she went to the University of Illinois and then transferred to Northwestern where she met and married Uncle Bill Stanton and became a wonderful mother to Kathleen and Bill, Jr.

            When I looked into her eyes, the years vanished. Her voice was the same as I remembered. The feel of her hands in mine and the lingering hug we shared answered a longing that I attribute to a deep desire to be in my parents’ embrace once again. It was a deeply satisfying emotional connection for which I will be eternally grateful.

            I’d intended our visit to be mutually satisfying, but I think I received the most profound blessing from our connection.

Glam It Up: Not For the Kitchen Anymore

            Do you currently own any of my one-of-a-kind, singularly designed hostess aprons?  Were you guilty of passing them by saying, “But I don’t cook anymore!”  The aprons are not designed for cooking, but for looking – and looking good while ordering take out or serving what was grilled by equally handsome hubby in his coordinating chef’s apron. Holiday Aprons add pizzaz to egg-nog and fruit cake. The Hostess Apron is not just for the kitchen, or so I hear.

Elizabeth Scokin, Blytheville, AR native and Nashville, TN resident, made Oprah’s list with her Haute Hostess Aprons. I first saw an article about her and her fancy stylings featured in the Commercial Appeal at least 10 years ago. In fact, I was so inspired by her designs that I tried my hand at something similar for a friend’s Christmas present. I designed and sewed for her an over-the-top, fancy-smancy, glitz and glamour University of Memphis Tigers Hostess Apron. It got rave reviews and requests for duplicates in Tennessee Orange and Razorback Red.

            Today’s ArkDem-Gaz reports that Scokin turned her aprons up a notch: “Think Giorgio Armani sleek ball gown…” The hostess apron described is shown under the heading Hostess Twinkle and comes in various colors with "silky bodies and deep flounces." Scokin stepped it beyond her original designs to Hostess Aprons 2.0, notes Helaine Williams in ArkDem-Gaz. The half-aprons have silky sashes, rhinestones and rickrack. 

           

     Her designs are handmade in Tennessee. Mine are handmade in a guest bedroom/princess bedroom/sewing room in Rector, Arkansas. My designs were featured at the Rector Crafts Fair for several seasons and sold for the bargain price of $20 or $25 (fully lined). Several still hang in the Community Center office and can be purchased as a donation to the Center. 

            I’ve filled several custom orders and get a great deal of pleasure from putting together the color and fabric combinations, adding just the right bling and glam for the customer's personality. The aprons are more expensive if I buy fabric and finishing trims for one design only…Just Saying  –Move over, Elizabeth!

An Experience We'll Never Forget

            Sand Dunes on the Pacific and a monster-ride in a 4-passenger dune buggy. Tiramisu and Cheesecake. Glacier National Park with aspens at every turn. Giant Sequoias, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Grand Canyon. The glitz of Las Vegas and the Power Plant tour at Hoover Dam, 26 floors below the main level. The roar of the Pacific Ocean's crashing waves at Cape Perpetua. Lombard Street, The Road to the Sun, and Route 66.

            Seeing my aunt and my cousin after a fifty year absence, not since we spent time together in 1966. Such wondrous adventures. Such a marvelous time: 6900 miles, 18 days, 15 states.

            Like Dorothy who traveled to the Land of Oz with adventures on The Yellow Brick Road, we saw many wonderful things, landscapes that were other-worldly. The giant sequoias defy imagination and confound the lexicon. The expansive beauty of the Grand Canyon hushes voices to a reverent whisper. A journey along Route 66 where it zigzags through old downtowns and back onto I-40 was something I always wanted to do, like Marvin wanting to drive down Lombard Street. He got to do that twice and it met all his expectations, except he might have preferred to drive a sports car.

            A ride along in a dune buggy on the coastal dunes near Florence, Oregon, showed us a different side of the Pacific Ocean National Coastline Recreation area. We got a ride that we’ll never duplicate. Sand was everywhere, a bucketful spraying Marvin fully, making him so glad to be wearing goggles.

            Culinary splurges included tiramisu and cheesecake, good ole chicken fried steak at a Route 66 diner. We had vowed not to eat our way across America! So excited to see and do the marvelous things on our list, food was not paramount.

            Nevertheless, it’s always good to get home. The ruby slippers clicked and we returned to AR-KANSAS, with its own natural beauty. Indeed, “there’s no place like home.”

            You might enjoy checking out my travel-blog at www.morethanabracelet.blogspot.com.