The Incredible Hulk, The Magician, and My Favorite Martian

Before Christmas I was looking for three signed photographs to frame and give to our son for his media/entertainment room. Actually, I did not look too hard. Today while we were finishing up our painting gallery in the dining room, we sorted through the artwork in our photo room upstairs. Hidden among the junk were the three (50 year old!) photos you can see below.

Here is the story:
When I was in junior high and again in high school our family made two trips out to Burbank, California to visit my dad's favorite sister Helyn. She was a dear, but tough old gal who lived a much wilder life than most of her siblings back in the Deep South. Rumor has it that she married 5 times, and I only remember meeting Johnny. He was the husband who came to visit us with my aunt, and my mom prepared quail. I think that was the first and last time we ate quail. Who knows where my parents got those little birds. But Uncle Johnny liked it so much that he even got it on his nose. (crazy what little girls remember)

But both times we visited Aunt Helyn in California, she was single. The first visit we stayed in her small little bungalow, and the second time we had brought along another aunt so we stayed in Aunt Helyn's rental house in the front of her bungalow.

What I remember the most about both vacations were the fun day trips to the television studios. The three photographs below came from a visit to the set of "My Favorite Martian." As Aunt Helyn worked for Larry Harmon Productions (Bozo the Clown), she took us right into the filming set of this popular 1960's television program. We met Bill Bixby, Ray Walston, and Pamela Britton and had a tour of the set. My brothers and I received signed photos of those three actors, and now I have framed mine for our son. This morning I compared all three signatures with authentic ones on the Internet, and they look "real" to me.

Our son probably has never heard of "My Favorite Martian," but he was a big fan of "The Incredible Hulk." Almost everyone knows that Lou Ferrigno was the green Hulk, but Bill Bixby played the handsome Dr. David Banner who metamorphoses into the green Hulk. Bixby died at the age of 59 in 1993 from prostate cancer.

As for beautiful Pamela Britton, her role as the nosy and ditzy landlady in "My Favorite Martian" from 1963-66 was her signature role in movies and television. She died from a brain tumor at the age of 51 in 1974.

You guessed it. Ray Walston is my favorite Martian. Although Walston played many roles in numerous plays, movies and television shows, our son probably remembers seeing him play Academy groundskeeper "Boothby" in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and later on in "Star Trek: Voyager." Walston died from a six year battle with lupus in 2001 at the age of 86.

Barley Twist Table

When I found this little table in the apartment, it was gray instead of brown. Someone had either left it in a barn or scrubbed it down to the old wood. How old it is or whether it was a second store purchase or a family heirloom, I have no idea. But I loved it when I found it, and I love it now that it is in our living room.

Furniture lovers call the legs barley twist, so finding little side tables like this on the Internet is quite easy. But this sweetie has an added attraction. The four sides were hand-carved with flowers and curly cues. The tabletop has warped and distinctly shows the three pieces of wood used to make it. Because the edges are beautifully beveled, you almost overlook the cracks between the slats of wood.

I wish I had taken a "before" photo of this sweetheart when she was old and gray. After soaking up one good slurp of Pledge Revitalizing Oil with Natural Orange Oil, she looks presentable and a keeper. The wood is still so dry that another polishing is probably in order.

I just flipped her upside-down to look for a makers name. This is what I found. No name, but reasonably new wooden braces and lots of rusty metal L braces that look old, but not antique. And, of course, one dead spider. A Dutch spider, I presume.

Both the table and spider will rest in peace.

Original Polish Pottery Ceramika Boleseawiecka

Hand Made In Poland

Last year in March we drove over into Poland just to say we had been there. If you have been following my blog, you may remember my post about visiting Peenemunde, Germany and then driving along the really long shopping avenue into Poland.

Most of the metal buildings were just vending stalls selling clothes and Polish sausage and tobacco items, but we happened to see a nice little white stucco shop selling Polish ceramics. After looking for bargains (as usual) and not finding too many, I settled on something unusual. You can see below a strangely shaped water pitcher decorated with blue and gold pansies. And it is stamped and has a signature of the person who painted it.

I am happy with this addition to my blue and white pitcher collection.

Brocante Finds Displayed

Every museum has to have a display case (etagere). We have one of those.

A couple of years ago, we bought this display cabinet at Ikea. For a long time we had a really neat showcase of my hub's toy automobile collection. Much to our son's chagrin, my hub was the only one to ever play with these miniature vehicles. But I enjoyed cleaning them and Googling to find their worth. Not a fortune, but quite interesting!

When the furniture "musical chairs" happened a month ago, we had to move the narrow, heavy glass display box closer to the stairs. I unloaded the shelves and stored the cars back upstairs, and then we shifted the case a few feet along the wall. Now it shares space with our inherited mirror and the "who knows what this is?" bench.

Today I dusted the glass and put up a new showcase. My Mammaw C. would call this collection Knick Knacks. My mom and sister-in-law call it Junk. I call it part of my Brocante collection. Now which sounds the best description to you? If you have to look up Brocante, then you probably don't even care about my Stuff.

In this display, I tried to use real Thrift Shop finds. Maybe a few family treasures sneaked in, but they were probably rescued from the Flea Markets in Europe anyway. Notice that I used real lead crystal (15 cents at the Thrift Shop) and pressed glass candle sticks to display brass, glass, hand-painted tins, and blue/white pottery.

One of my favorite pieces is the amber tealight on the second shelf from the top. I bought that for a pittance at a Charity Shop in England the time the three of us spent the week on a narrowboat. My hub and son never even entered the shop, but it was great!

Think I will swap Brocante finds in this spotlight area the next few months. Does that mean I will be the curator? :)

Desert Rose by Franciscan

One of the first things I bought back in my $5,000 a year salary days was my own china.

I chose a very popular Desert Rose pattern from Franciscan and began collecting. I remember going to a local jewelry store to replace a broken cup and being told that I would have to buy more than one cup. The saleslady said, "We can not break a set. You will have to buy more than one cup!" Needless to say, I did not buy anything from her.

Over the next 40 years, I added to my service and even bought a complete set made in China. It isn't as crisp and detailed as the original, but now we have more than enough to set a nice table with the most popular china service of all times.

All of our Desert Rose china was "hand carried" from the US to Europe by me and my parents during many trips across the big puddle. In 2006 the entire set was transported back to the US by freight on board a huge ship.

Twenty years ago I started picking up Villeroy and Boch Wild Rose china that almost matches my Desert Rose. The German service has several pieces that are not available in the Desert Rose pattern. Plus Metlach, Germany and the Outlet Store for Villeroy and Boch sometimes just happens to be on our vacation route :)))))

Here is a photo of a cereal bowl filled with my oven polenta and crawfish, shrimp, ham, and okra gumbo dinner. Yummy!

"de Eindhoeve" Gable Sign

Our old Dutch farmhouse in Zoeterwoude had wooden planks to decorate the gables and also "geveltekens" (gable signs).

Usually gable signs are wooden planks shaped with several stylized symbols, which can be anything from a life tree, cross, anchor, heart, a sun wheel, two rampant horses, or two swans. (Ours was a flower and a cut out heart.)These gable signs are mounted vertically onto the ridge of the house at the front and the back gables. The symbols are believed to either invoke prosperity or to ward off misfortune.

Back years ago when we had our wind planks replaced and painted, we had our gable signs replaced, too. Actually the front of our house at one time was lower than the back, so the house just had one gable sign (the back one). Now it has one on the front and one on the back!

What you see below is the rescued original gable sign from our farmhouse "de Eindhoeve" ( the end farm or last farm on the road). It now has a special dry spot in the corner of our hallway.

Above: Back of house 2006

Above: Look carefully, front of house (actually barn by chimney) 1924!!!

Corner Cabinet

According to my hub this corner cupboard is new. I guess that depends on how you look at it.

We brought this handmade piece of furniture to the US in 2006.
We had it in our bedroom (kitchen was too small for it) in Zoeterwoude for almost 20 years!
It came from the corner of my in-laws' kitchen in Olst before that. I remember seeing it for the first time there in 1979.

So even if it is NEW, it must be at least 35 years old.

I still want to lighten up the inside walls so that people can see what I have placed on the shelves. That collection is a treasure of old kitchen apparatus from "grandmother's" time and earlier.

Shame it still smells a bit musty!