Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Tell Me a Story



Here's a true story: About a month ago, I happened upon a vacant, old farmhouse for sale down Onemo. Wanting more to photograph the house and less to think of how I could never afford to purchase it, I bravely pulled right on in the driveway and commenced to taking pictures.

The house itself was marvelous, but this window in particular caught my eye.

Doesn't it look like your grandmother's windowsill? The poor woman is probably either in the nursing home or was recently called home - to The Big Home in the Sky--so they've put her lovely old farmhouse up for sale. (This is just my guess; for all I know the house belongs to some poor family of four, freshly moved here from Richmond, who finally had it up to here with the fiddler crab infestation in their yard, which of course is about one foot below sea level.)

Reflect on this window. Ponder those knickknacks. Wonder why on Earth you read this ridiculous blog. Consider their owner, and tell me about the person who stood in that kitchen.

I'll go first:


Her hair was in a bun, and she wore a dress every day. She could cook like nobody's fool and always wore an apron. Peanut butter cookies and hot apple pie were her specialties. Her husband died many years ago, but she stayed busy and enjoyed the company of her one best friend, who lived near by. This friend drove her to church every Sunday, and they had breakfast together every Wednesday. She always had pancakes; her friend had the eggs over easy. They went to the grocery store afterwards; Best Value was their favorite.

She loved flowers but in her later years found that gardening was too hard on her aching joints and weary body. Likewise she had to give up playing the piano but never tired of playing her old records of ragtime songs.

Then one day as she was dusting off the precious ceramic chickens proudly displayed on her windowsill, she parted the curtains to see some frizzy-haired lunatic pointing a camera at her. Ceramic Chicken Lady screamed! Chesapeake Bay Woman screamed! Then they both had heart attacks and blacked out.


The End.

p.s. Of course that's not a true story. I just created it in the vast, vacant wasteland known as my brain my imagination.

Now it's your turn to make up a story or at least tell me what comes to mind when you see this quaint window and try to picture who used to live there.

17 comments:

AnnieL said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
dogimo said...

There is no woman! Instead, from within the kitchen only the curtain demon scowls out with a glowering vacant glare of triangular eyes under fruit-rimmed brows, a rumpled white veil drawn across its hideous missing features, wishing only to smash and devour the helpless ceramic birds, but rendered powerless to do so - by being inanimate!

The End.

Sharon Day said...

She never had children. hated when people walked past her property or children screamed in stores. She never married. No man was up to snuff. She kept busy with her four cats that became six cats that became 18 cats by the time she hit her 60s. The cats liked to sun in the windowsill. She humored herself by putting the ceramic birds where the cats liked to rest. Their reactions gave her great roaring laughter that splintered into dry cackles, as her lungs weren't holding up to two packs a day for 45 years. The cats hated those porcelain birds. They stared up at them and sometimes tested their stalking skills by creeping up on them, but always they scurried away in fear. The old lady would cluck and admonish them for being scaredy cats. Even the cats couldn't live up to her personal standards. She loved them and hated that she needed them so she ridiculed them. She had done that all her life, driving away her sister and two brothers. Just as well, they would walk across her lawn if the visited and leave muddy footprints on the blades of grass. (BTW, I knew a lady in the area there who was like that)

Unknown said...

She's still in there, and cussing under her breath at the looney gal in her driveway. She vows to keep her rife lock and loaded by the kitchen window in case the crazy lady returns.

Chesapeake Bay Woman said...

OK, I am late for work as usual but had to get on here before I go to say that I LOVE your stories so far. They're great.

Thanks so much for entertaining me - I need it.

Annie said...

Once upon a time there was a dear lady who had four wonderful children! One year they all got married, and left town. Poor lady! She pondered and pondered, and decided,t hat no, she liked where she lived, and she was going to stay there! So she did. And each year, one of the children(the only girl) brought her another little ceramic bird, to put in her window sill, and to remember the daughter by. One day the daughter died suddenly, and the old lady was so grief stricken that she had a stroke, and had to go into an old peoples home to be looked after. Once a week the boys would come and visit, and she would vainly try to tell them that she would really like them to bring her ceramic birds to her out of the old house they were selling. But she couldn't speak properly yet, and they couldn't understand what she was saying!

That's better...I signed under the wrong name before...

Daryl said...

First I want to turn that middle chicken around so its facing out .. I have a little Adrian Monk in me... as to who lived there .. well ... a young woman and her grandmother lived there .. the grandmother was killed when the locals learned she was accepting of her granddaughter's relationship with a vampire...oh wait, that was Season 1 of True Blood ..

Mental P Mama said...

Here's my story: That house belongs to Mental P now.

The end.

Meg McCormick said...

My mother-in-law has TONS of little ceramic doo-dads on her window like that. Then she won't open the windows in her non-air conditioned house because, she says, "the dirt gets in", but in reality I suspect it's because she doesn't want to relocate her display.

I don't know much about the woman in that house, but I do know that that house has a particular smell that her children and grandchildren will remember for the rest of their lives.

Linda said...

She married young, and had 4 children before she was 26. She regretted not completing high school. She was sad most of her life. She always thought she could have been so much more. But there were the children & the husband to think of. She never put herself first. The ceramic chickens on the sill and the fruit print valance over the window made her smile. As did the view from that kitchen window, where she often wondered "What if?"

Unknown said...

I would like a piece of her apple pie right now! What a great picture. It made me miss my Gram!

big hair envy said...

We ARE related!! It's obvious that you knew my grandmother!

Karen Deborah said...

I liked your story, and um grandma J's comment is pretty funny. the dogimo story is just? all that from a nice picture.

Country Girl said...

She wasn't very fond of nicknacks, but always seemed to receive them as gifts. The majority of them were from children she'd taught during her 40 years as a teacher.

She was a city girl at heart and grew up in Richmond. She was working as an elementary school teacher when she met her husband-to-be shortly before he was called to fight for our country in WWII. When he returned, they married and bought the house in Onemo where they hoped to raise a family in the country. She got a job at the local school, and continued to work within the school district (with the help of a nanny) while raising 2 daughters and a son. The girls live fairly close by, one in Richmond and the other outside of Charlottesville. The son is a surgeon and lives in California.
Her husband passed away in the early 90's.

She's kept many of her students' little gifts over the years, and most of them are packed up in the attic, but it's the special ones ~ the pieces that her children remember that are out for display right now.

She's in a nursing home north of Richmond where her daughters visit her almost daily. Her son flies in when he can. And the lovely family home is currently up for sale.

Chesapeake Bay Woman said...

LOVE these stories. Thank you all for playing along. Please keep them coming.

Will this week ever end?

Ann Marie said...

I know who lived there.. keeping mouth shut.

Sugar Creek Beads said...

Not a story to write but I had to say I just fell over laughing at Daryl's comment. Very clever they all are! Jeanne