I was looking through photographs on my drive tonight and got caught up checking these out, did a quick search through my blogs and didn't find any reference to them. If I have told you about these before - whoops, sorry!
Mom was kind of a nut. She had a wicked, weird sense of humor and would get away with whatever she could, whenever she could. She was always very careful about her audience, but sometimes she just couldn't help herself.
Her father was even worse. His bawdy, strange sense of humor was just as wicked and weird and he didn't have quite the sense of propriety that mom did. Like the time when we lived in Morning Sun - a little town in southeast Iowa. He had taken a trip to Hawaii and came to the parsonage to visit us. He had slides and wanted to show the family his trip. The only open white space in the house was the large shade that pulled down over the picture window in the living room, so Dad obediently pulled it down and Mac set up the slideshow. Beautiful pictures of scenery, interesting photos of people. On and on he went through the slides until he hit a series of naked women. He just kept clicking away until all of a sudden Dad's face went ashen. Mac's eyes took on a hideous glint. Dad rushed outside, realized that you could see the entire slideshow from the street, which happened to be the main street through town and that the pastor was showing pictures of naked Hawaiian women to the entire community. He pulled the plug and Mac just laughed and laughed.
Mac called anyone that annoyed him a 'bloody bastard.' I don't think I realized how much time he had spent around our family. But as the story goes, as a very little girl, I picked up on his phrasing. Only I called people bloody beasters. And it stuck.
Well, one day, Mom was throwing pots on her potters wheel and one flopped. She turned it over on its side, added eyes, feet (with toes no less), ears and a strange little pigs tail on the back and called it a 'beaster.' Just because. It really makes a great candy dish. You'll notice that the big toe on the back foot is sticking up a little bit. That's because Mom could always tell when I was excited or stressed. My big toe went right up. I've managed to tame that - I have too many 'tells' at it is!!!
The next piece that she made - and she made several of these - was the Diggly. I don't know if I ever knew a story about how this came about, it was just something that she got into her head. Dog, Pig, Lion = Diggly.
This lives with Carol now. The worst thing is, we all know that a bunch of Mom's creations were given to friends and family over the years. They've probably been passed down to people that have no idea what they are or where they came from and have traversed many a garage sale.
However, one of my cousins was thinking about me. She walked into the print shop one day with a strange little creation. Mom had given it to her years and years before and she wanted to make sure that it got back to our family. It was another flopped pot, but Mom cut some holes in it, gave it feet and a tale and some eyes. It's a fabulous candle holder and looks like a dragon.
These are the stranger things that we've got around. I'll post some of Mom's more normal pieces another day. Yes, it makes me happy to know that I've come from such a creative person. Even if she was a little odd.
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