Carole Knits

october zinnia
october zinnia
martinis with a view
martinis with a view
gettysburg fence for
gettysburg fence for
germinate shawl on rocks
germinate shawl on rocks
field of flags 2
field of flags 2
color affection with edge
color affection with edge
cedar leaf shawlette 2
cedar leaf shawlette 2
3_27_2014
3_27_2014
3_18_13
3_18_13
2_24_2014
2_24_2014
1_11_13
1_11_13
peony-bouquet-for-carole-knits
peony-bouquet-for-carole-knits
dale-and-jackie-for-carole-knits
dale-and-jackie-for-carole-knits
nightshift-progress-for-carole-knits
nightshift-progress-for-carole-knits

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Museum of Me

July 18, 2022 By Carole

Well, hello, and welcome to the latest exhibit in the Museum of Me. This month’s exhibit is inspired by the season and we are showcasing a favorite family vacation.

My family did not have a lot of money and any vacations we took were a car ride (never a plane ride) away. The place we went to most consistently was Cape Cod and for many years, 1970 to 1975 or so, my Nana rented a cottage for all of us for the month of July at a place called Mashnee Village. If you’re familiar with Cape Cod, this area was over the Bourne Bridge and immediately to the right, across the causeway from Pocasset.

The cottage we had was right on the water, you just walked down a little path of wildflowers and there was the beach. In those days, all the cottages in the village were the same. A living room in the middle, a kitchen to the right, and two bedrooms and a bathroom to the left. My Nana and Bumpa, my mother and I, and my brother Donald were always there. My dad came on the weekends and my oldest brother, who was 18 by then, rarely came because he was too cool for family vacations at that time in his life.

I have so many wonderful memories of our time there.

There was a family of skunks that would come every night and my mom would put out our leftovers in a tin pie plate and they would eat them. I would sit in my grandfather’s lap in the twilight and watch them with awe and a little bit of fear.

There was a village clubhouse and they had happy hour for the grown ups every afternoon. On Tuesday nights they had weenie roasts. There was also a pool (which in my youthful stupidity I preferred over the ocean) and when it rained they showed movies. I remember one very rainy and windy afternoon, I went with my brother to the movies and it was Godzilla. I was terrified but my brother wouldn’t leave because he loved it so I was stuck until it was over. I can still see my mom walking down the road to come and get us with a gigantic beach umbrella to protect us all from the rain.

One summer, probably 1971 or 1972, my mom took a bad fall off of her bike while we were out for a ride. It had something to do with the maintenance guy mowing the lawn and him not seeing my mom because a car was coming and she swerved to get out of the way and went over the handlebars. The road was macadam and my mom’s knees, hands, and elbows were hurt badly. We had to take my brother to Boy Scout camp and I remember the Scoutmaster asking her, with a sideways glance at my dad, if everything was okay at home.

It was all pretty idyllic. The days felt so long and I loved being there with everyone, including our first Siamese cat, Simba, who followed my mom around like a dog and would sleep under her chaise lounge when she was at the beach. It was actually at that cottage that my nana first attempted to teach me to knit. I never got the hang of it then (probably because she assumed I’d knit left handed and I don’t but I still consider it my first foray into knitting.) I remember eating lots of fresh striper and steamers, local corn on the cob and tomatoes, and blueberry pies that my mom would make from berries we picked.

Mashnee Village is still there . . . in a way. The houses are no longer owned by the corporation but by individuals. The clubhouse is long gone, of course. But in 2015 we visited friends who were staying at a house there. I was reminiscing about my summers there and wondered if I could find the cottage that we rented. We set out for a walk, knowing that many many of those cottages have now been converted to fancier houses, but I remembered my way around and as we came down a street I said, it’s going to be right up here around the bend if it’s still there. And guess what?

Yep. That’s the same place. I cried when I saw it and felt so grateful for all of the memories of those summers at Mashnee Village.

Filed Under: Museum of Me

Museum of Me: June 2022 Exhibit

June 13, 2022 By Carole

This month’s Museum of Me exhibit is to showcase my favorite outside game as a kid. Friends. I had to think long and hard to come up with something for this exhibit. You see, my mom always said that we (she and I) were fans of indoor sports . . . meaning reading, sewing, and other handicrafts. Not meaning . . . tag and softball and red rover, etc. The impact of that philosophy is something I have struggled to unpack for years. Really, being raised with that attitude, is it any wonder I have a hard time finding joy in moving my body? But that’s a story for another day.

For this exhibit, I take you back to Carole at 10ish. My stepdad was a huge sports fan, he loved basketball and hockey and golf, but his biggest love was for baseball. And when I was around 10, he and I would go out in the yard after dinner and he would pitch to me and I would bat. He always joked that I missed the slow balls every time but when he threw me a fastball I would hit it out of the yard. I loved those times with him. I loved that hitting the ball felt good and sounded great (there’s nothing like the crack of a bat connecting with a ball) and that it made my dad so proud of me. He would laugh and smile and congratulate me every time I hit that silly ball.

So, while it’s a small exhibit this month, it’s full of poignant memories, and also some frustration due to the conflicting messages I received about playing outdoors and games and sports. Valuable lessons in all of it, for sure.

Filed Under: Museum of Me

Museum of Me

May 16, 2022 By Carole

A new exhibit has been installed at the Museum of Me and it couldn’t be more . . . perfect . . . for me because it’s about my favorite book as a kid. Let’s take a trip back to 10 year old Carole. The future librarian. Her favorite book was actually a series of books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and called, affectionately, The Little House Books.

I’m not sure exactly how old I was when I read Little House in the Big Woods for the first time. The suggested age level is 8-12, but I was a pretty advanced reader and I’m fairly certain I read this in 2nd grade. And once I read that one, I couldn’t wait to read all of the others. Of course, as Laura matured, so did the nature of the books and I know my mother held me back some before she’d let me read the later ones, but I do know that by the time I finished elementary school I had read them all. Multiple times.

This is me in 5th grade at the height of my Little House books obsession. I was thrilled to have a dress like Laura would have worn.

I loved that Laura was so real. I loved that Ma and Pa had a loving relationship (and we shan’t discuss the fantasy that probably was.) I loved that the books were historical and set during a time I wish I could have experienced myself. I loved that they traveled by covered wagon and grew their own food and struggled and persisted and triumphed. I loved the illustrations by Garth Williams and the romance that blossomed between Laura and Almanzo when she was a young lady. I loved that Laura became a teacher and then a wife with a husband and child and home of her own. I think my favorite, of all of the books, was Little Town On the Prairie, but it’s very hard to actually choose.

You know what I did not love? That they turned my favorite books into a television series. And, in doing so, they completely abandoned the real things that happened for sensationalized stories and 60 minute plots. Now, that’s not to say that I didn’t watch it, because I did. And I wanted Michael Landon to be my father in the worst way. But this was also my first (and certainly not last) realization that the book is always, always better than the television show or movie.

Thanks for joining us in the library . . . I mean exhibit hall . . . this month. Check back in on the 3rd Monday of June for a exhibit in the Museum of Me. And shout out to Kym for this really fun monthly blog prompt!

Filed Under: Museum of Me

Museum of Me

April 11, 2022 By Carole

Today, I’m joining in on Kym‘s fantastic blog trend, the Museum of Me. Now, these posts are technically supposed to go up on the 2nd Friday of the month. But. Eye Candy Friday is a long standing tradition here at Carole Knits and I’m not changing that so, instead, I will share my museum exhibits on the 2nd Monday of the month. Now that the housekeeping stuff is out of the way . . . on to this month’s exhibit: a job I had early in life.

It’s no secret to anyone who has been around here for a bit that I’ve wanted to be a librarian since I was in 5th grade. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that my first paying job (other than babysitting) was at the Brockton Public Library. I got that job when I was 16 and, truth be told, I probably got it because my godmother was on the Board of Library Trustees. I remember feeling weird about that and thinking it wasn’t fair that I got special treatment. And I also remember my mother very smartly pointing out to me that, while sometimes it takes luck to get a job, when it comes to keeping a job it’s a completely different story. That’s a lesson I carry with me to this day and I’m so glad my mom helped me put that aspect of securing a job into perspective.

When I was first hired, I worked at the downtown branch of the library, and my job was to shelve books and also retrieve books from the stacks. You see, in those days, Brockton had closed stacks for nonfiction, so anyone who wanted to see those books had to request them on a slip of paper and then one of us (we were called library pages) would get the books and bring them out. The library was a Carnegie building and there were 3 stories of floors in the stacks and they were glass. The glass was slightly frosted and very practical because it allowed the light to shine through and make the dark stacks brighter. There were usually 2 of us per shift and we spent a lot of time running up and down those stairs and in and out of the stacks. Sometimes it was frustrating to bring out 10 books only to have the patron reject them all and ask for 10 more but, to me at least, it was all so interesting and I loved it. There were also a lot of quiet nooks to hide out when it wasn’t busy, but don’t tell anyone!

Even though I primarily worked at the main branch, on Saturdays I rotated through the 4 small branches in the city. This made for a great change of scenery and it improved my library skills, too, because when I was at the branches I worked at the circulation desk. I loved checking out books to the patrons, seeing what everyone was reading, and just generally being involved with the hubbub of the library on a Saturday. I was happiest when I got to work at the West Side branch because that was the branch I went to with my mom when I was a kid. Eventually, a job opened up there and I was able to work there exclusively. That felt like a dream come true because I not only could walk there after school, but I was also working with my favorite librarians – including the one who first told me, back in 5th grade, that librarians knew how to find all the answers.

I stayed at the library for two years, until I went off to college. This happened to coincide with some cuts in the city’s budget and, unfortunately, I was not able to go back to work there when I was home in the summers. That was okay, though, because I got a job at City Hall working in the Mayor’s Office. In hindsight, that was my first foray into politics and, while it wasn’t the same as being at the library, it was still a great experience. Looking back, I can see that I was clearly always destined for a career in the public sector!

And that’s the story of this exhibit and the start of my life long dream of being a librarian. Thanks for visiting the Museum of Me this month!

Filed Under: Museum of Me, That's Life

Welcome to . . . The Museum of ME

October 19, 2021 By Carole

Last month, Kym introduced a new feature on her blog that she named The Museum of Me. It came from a bit of introspection about blogging and I can relate to that completely, as I sometimes contemplate the role the blog plays in my life. The bottom line, for me, is that it’s an incredible online diary of my life, going all the way back to January 2005. Aside from the satisfaction I get from writing, it’s also super useful when it comes to remembering when things happened. For instance, the other day I needed to know when I had Lyme. I knew it was the summer that Dixie died so I searched that on the blog and there it was, August 2014. Not to mention all the big things like weddings and vacations, births and birthdays and deaths, and all the stuff in between for all these years.

So, I’m tagging along with this Museum of Me thing, but in my own way, using Kym’s ideas as a starting point and then putting my own riff on them. Kym’s first exhibit was the oldest thing from her childhood still in her possession. I gave that some thought and I’d have to say it’s probably the Christmas ornaments my brothers made when they were little, back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They are invaluable to me and I put them on the tree with so much care and love every year. They are also currently in a box in the attic and, as much as I’m committed to this blog, I’m not dragging that box out to take a photo today. Instead, I’m sharing a photo of something from my childhood that is currently on display in my home.

These ceramic Siamese cats were my moms and I clearly remember them being on a side table in our living room. I don’t know where they came from or when she got them but I can’t remember a time they weren’t there. The house I grew up in was a sort of modified cape and the living room was to the right of the front door and it was 100% my mom’s room. It’s where she went to relax and have a moment of peace and my brothers and I were not allowed to play in that room, although we did walk by it every time we went up and down the stairs. Honestly, I only remember being in that room for extended periods of time on Sunday afternoons, holidays, and when I practiced the piano. And sometimes, if I asked and was very careful, I was allowed to move these cats from the side table to the piano and I would play concerts for them. Eventually the piano became their permanent home and I spent a lot of time playing for them. Which is maybe weird . . . but still true.

They have been in various places in our house for many years and right now they are on the tall dresser in our bedroom. They make me think of all the Siamese kitties I have had over the years. And of playing the piano for them.

Filed Under: Museum of Me

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I love a hotel conference room with a view! #massl I love a hotel conference room with a view! #masslib2022 #libraryconference #aroomwithaview
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