Beautiful Old Broads Look Back

Hello Dear Ones.

I apologize for the repetitious post last week.  Please be patient with me as I stumble along on this blogging journey.  And again, send me your comments, opinions, and ideas for future posts.

I don't want this blog to be a walk down memory lane, rather it be Janus-like with a head that swivels both ways into the future and back to the past.

This week my mind drifted (my mind often drifts) back to the past and our first rented flat on Ilene Avenue,  I was a fearless decorator though I possessed not a pin's worth of decorating savvy.  I dove in with two goals in mind.  One was traverse drapes.  To have a living room where as dusk fell, like Loretta Young, I'd drift over and slowly draw the heavy drapes shutting out the city noises; that was my first goal.

To that end, I bought a used sewing machine  from a friend of my sisters for 35 dollars and yards and yards of fabric and pleating tape with directions for pleating. Did I mention the color?  Aqua blue and deep lilac.  That's right.  Panels of blue and lilac to match the lilac couch we purchased.  In front of the couch was a round walnut veneer coffee table purchased with 9 books of S&H Green Stamps.  Ho!  Remember those?  I think there were red stamps too?  

Across the room there was a chatter bench.  A slatted low bench sometimes with a pad.  The 12" TV resided on our bench.  All in all it was a Danish modern living room and I was delighted with it.  Indeed I didn't know it then, but I was practicing my own brand of feng shui.

The other goal which I didn't achieve until we moved into a house of our own was wall to wall carpeting.  Now THAT was the hallmark of wealth.  The color choice was a no brainer...avocado of course.  The sixties was the guacamole decade.  Harvest gold and avocado everything.  I dipped in with abandon.

The Roman god Janus with his two faces was the god of all thresholds watching over those entering and those leaving.  Sort of a modern day security system.  He was also the god of beginnings and passages, hence the first month of the year named January.

Perhaps this tale will trigger you to swivel your head back to your first apartment or  flat and remember those days.

                   "Better than the minting of a gold crowned king
                     Is the safe-kept memory of a lovely thing."       
                                                               Sara Teasdale