Meeting JJ part 2

Meeting JJ Chapter 2

I was newly living in the south. Sometime toward the middle of my first semester at my quaint southern mountain college, I experience the pangs of full blown culture shock. I was a northern city girl and I thought I was sophisticated. I was raised to believe that stereotypes are an untrue but humorous affectation. They were only supposed to be used with poetic license to tell stories like Faulkner’s’ “Tobacco Road”.
My experiences with southern living were confusing and enlightening. The young ladies who lived in the dorm had an aristocratic heir about them and lilting southern accents. They spoke in superficial self-important prose discussing things like how many marriage proposals they had during summer break. All that was missing were their bell shaped dresses and crinolines.
It took me about 20 years to actually become acculturated. Fortunately, it only took me six months to learn to pay attention to the culture I was in. I knew that I could not just walk up to this beautiful black-hatted man and start talking to him. This was not 1979 in a northern city like Cleveland. This was not a metropolis leaping with abandon away from disco and into the cocaine mania of the 1980’s club scene. It was a small southern town that was so many years behind itself that it might as well have been 1955. I expected to see sheriff Andy Tailor and aunt Bea around every corner.
In six months, I learned enough of good southern manners to know that I needed to be introduced to a man before I could talk to him. I started asking around, “Do you know that guy with long blond hair a black hat and brief case?” I found out that he was a quiet guy who everyone thought was quite smart. He was a Music Major.
Soon I found someone who knew him well enough to make introductions. He told me when Carl, for that was his name, would likely be in the student center on campus. I made sure that I was in the student center at the auspicious time.
Carl walked down the steps of the student center to the snack bar area where most of the students took refuge. The brief case was in hand and the black hat was on head. The young man I asked to introduce us did exactly that. He invited Carl to sit at our table and he said, “This is Bonnie.”
“Howdy” was his response. How cute!
He was darling and shy and polite and lanky. He had piercing blue eyes surrounded by blond eyelashes. I began to form a plan for spending more time with this guy.
First you find the man and then you secure the date.
Having found the man I knew I wanted to get to know, and getting myself introduced to him, I began stalking him in the music building at the college we both attended. It only took a few hours for him to show up in the hallway. Fortunately, he stopped in front of a poster advertising a harpsichord program that was scheduled for that very evening.
I stood next to him in front of the poster and after simple hellos, I lied, “I just love harpsichord music.”
Never mind that the totality of my experience with harpsichord music was watching the famous and flamboyant pianist Liberachi on a Star Trek episode. I would have said anything to get that gorgeous long blond hair and those beautiful blue eyes to ask me out.
Carl looked at my innocent smiling harpsichord loving face and believing in my honest sincerity, he did as I intended, He said, “Would you like to go to the concert with me tonight?”
OK, so I did not think this all the way through. The concert was that night and I had a rehearsal for the senior spring dance program that night. I wasn’t a senior but part of their grade involved finding and working with other dancers to produce three pieces, a classical ballet, a modern piece and one that could be anything they wanted. (These often involved rock music and jazz moves.) I was one of their dancers.
“I’d love to go but I have rehearsal tonight.”
Carl had trouble thinking beyond a few hours into his future so instead of working out another date, he said his good byes and left the poster, the building and me behind.

Leaves Falling into an Empty Nest

This tessellation quilt was made in 2003 after all my children left home. I used fall colors to represent the autumn of my life and the empty nest that I was living in. I call it Leaves falling into an Empty nest.

This is a quilt that had many pieces all numbered and lettered and pressed up on the big felt board I have in my sewing room so that each piece would not get mixed up. The color changes were tricky. Fortunately I had a book to go by. The book is called Tessellations by Jackie Robinson and can be purchased from amazon.com

plans for chapter 2 of the meeting JJ story

Well I wrote a bit about meeting JJ but he said I got completely off track from the point of the story when I began talking about Star Trek and that being my only actual connection to harpsichord music. Since the Star trek rant was the biggest part of the story, (and a huge part of my youth by the way) I am definitely in rewrite mode. It will be first on my list tomorrow and we will see if the newer version passes JJ muster.
On the lighter side of things, I am working on new quilt that is designed to look like the aurora borialis. Unfortunately it is in that annoying part of the creative process where I am afraid it will deteriorate into randomness rather than evoking awe and coolness.
I will keep on working on the quilt of course since I am an annoyingly diligent worker even when I don't have a job.
JJ and I are excited about our impending trip to Maryland to visit Jecholia, Brian and our granddog Molly. We leave on Friday afternoon.
Yippy!

This is a quilt I made for my daughter Jecholia. In 2005, I met my goal to get a masters degree in Social work and quit my job working as a registered nurse. I worked all day most days from my graduation until I began working at the state hospital. I put this one together in about 6 weeks. I found a rose and took a picture of it and then enlarged it on a grid to make the pattern. This rose quilt has about 10,000 squares in it. It fits a queen size bed.

My latest quilt

This is the top of the quilt finished. I will fit on a queen size bed.
This is the center portion of the new quilt. I love the star pattern. JJ helped me to pick out the colors.

How I met JJ

This is the beginning of a story I often told my children about meeting their father. more will follow as I work out the tale in print.

When I was eighteen years old, I was majoring in ballet at a small women’s finishing college in Southwestern Virginia. Their were about 700 students at the time and since the school had decided a couple years earlier to admit men, there were about 50 students of the male persuasion. I didn’t go to college to find a man but I was in full youthful bloom, it was the end of March and daffodils, dogwood blooms and small baby leaves were appearing on every brown stick my eyes had trundled past during the long winter of my freshman year. The uniform for ballet majors was variations on a leotard skirt and bun theme. I was wearing a red circle skirt over pink tights, a pale blue leotard with long sleeves and safety pins. The pins weren’t to emulate the new punk rock look that was creeping into the art savvy fashion of the late 70 s and early 80’s, the pins were functional and held my bra straps in place. I did fancy myself as artistically savvy but in retrospect I realize that I didn’t have a clue about art. I didn’t even know that most of the songs I liked were about sex and that sex is the reason for art in the first place. My hair bun reflected my ignorance. It was severe and was held in place by elastic and bobby pins and sweat because for me art was a severe endeavor.
So there I was in my seriously artistic uniform standing on a set of stairs outside the dining hall after dance class. I was looking out over the campus when I saw him. He strode with determination across the lawn. He had beautiful long flowing blond hair that lapped at his shoulder blades while flowing out from beneath a black leather hat. This was no ordinary hat, it was hand made and stitched. The hat looked as if it were purchased from some back to the land hippy. The hippy must have returned from out west to live in the mountains. This hat maker was no doubt “into leather” and living off land, love, craft and marijuana sales. The hat wore like an old friend that had been taken in the rain and snow and through the morning dew via motorcycle to concerts, friends’ homes, piano lessons, long hikes and schools. This hat was not bought off the shelf and the man wearing it did not look like anything that could be bought off the shelf either. He carried a black leather brief case like some sort of businessman. The contrast was stunning and seductive. I had to find out who this man was. So my quest began.
I found out his name was Carl and he was a music major.
I began loitering in the music building on campus.