I wanted to write something holiday-ish this week for the Thanksgiving weekend. The ordinary thing to do would be to tell about my grandchildren's and step-son's upcoming visit and our plans, and I'm happy about spending the time with them, but it didn't seem interesting enough to be blogged.
I thought about researching Wikipedia and writing some Interesting, but dull, facts about this first banquet the English settlers shared with the native Americans that has more legend in it than fact. Too common and ordinary!
I mused about going to one of the photo sites and finding photos to create a slide show or a collage or something. While I was musing--I lift my chin sometimes when I muse--I noticed the turkey and roaster salt & pepper shakers I had added to my fireplace mantel Autumn decoration.
See the little yellow and brown spot just to the center right of this picture of my fireplace mantel which is a very old chestnut log saved from a demolished local log cabin. That's a set of salt and pepper shakers belonging to my collection; I've been collecting since the 1940's. The long-barrel rifle hanging above the mantel is an antique Pennsylvania long-rifle dating to c.1820 that Rocky purchased in his teens in Delaware.The quilted pumpkin on the left was purchased in Jonesborough at this year's story festival. The cornshuck witch that you will see in the next photo was given to me by Rocky purchased from the Blue Ridge Folk Art Center near Asheville. Here's a better picture of the witch and the salt and pepper shakers.
The roaster is one shaker and the turkey is the other. I still collect s&p's and have 350 or so. Many of them are known as novelty shakers, which makes sense since I was only 7 or 8 when my mother started me off with a little bride and groom that she had been given as a wedding gift and let me play with them in my doll house. A number of my early ones are chalkware which is a very fragile material and chips as easily as plaster. It is not a collector's choice because of this. Chalkware was used during the Second World War for novelty goods since metals and glass were restricted for war use. The turkey and roaster are ceramic. Plastic was not well developed until after the war.
In the right-hand side bar are some photos of my other salt and pepper shakers which have something to do with our wonderful American thanksgiving legend although some of them are a stretch. For instance, the people look more Amish than Colonial, but they're all I had. Mimi
