Thursday, December 29, 2011

Old Sheet Music

During Christmas this year we looked through old pictures, Gayle made us each our own bag of photos that were of us or our family.  They were so funny to look through, the hairstyles and clothes that we wore.... what was wrong with us?  Then we got into old tavern pictures, there is as big a box from the tavern as there is from the family.  There were ball tournament pics of us sitting there with playpens, strollers, blankets, every toy the kids probably owned just to keep them busy all day.... all weekend while we watched the games and helped with the beer stand.  We made beer can top chains (remember the ones that you pulled off), drank upside down shots, played neon beer sign guitars, danced, sang..... we did just about everything and we did that every weekend.  I remember just having Lynn, no money but we saved our change so we could go out to the bar and spend our entire Sunday there.  I grew up in the bar so that was no big deal to me to have children hanging out in the bar, eating both meals there and playing in the parking lot or horseshoe pits.  Don't judge me...... my kids turned out just fine.  That was where our family was, they weren't at home so to be with mom, dad, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts.... you were at the bar.  You would think our little girls needed to nap during that long day.... what do you think those pool tables are for.

There were many pictures of my mom during her crazy days as a bartender.  She didn't drink much but she joined in with all the craziness that happened there just fine.  The pictures of my dad seemed to be a pattern that we all noticed and commented about.  He was always right in the middle of what was going on.  He was the one dancing the hardest, laughing the most, always had a girl or two or three on his arm, playing his stump fiddle, and just having fun.  He never aged with all the years of photos, my dad still looks the same, must have been all the fun he had over the years that kept him young.  Bar life certainly isn't for me anymore.  I can't imagine taking my grandkids to the bar to hang out for a day or worse yet an entire weekend.  Bar life sounds fun but it's a lot of work, my mom and dad worked hard.... and played hard and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.   Farm kid I was not but I could handle that bar life just fine.  I could waitress up a storm, make drinks in my sleep, drink dad's shots when he lost in a dice game and bullshit with the best of them old bar flys.  And that's when I was 13 :)

How I got off on that story is crazy because today's photo has nothing to do with that..... after we got done with the photos we looked through Granny and Grandma's old piano music.  It is so old that the paper just crumbles.  There is some from 1940 and older in that box.  Well since it's so old you certainly can't use it to play piano so I took some to recycle into something we can preserve for at least a few more hundred years.  I have lots of plans but may have to wait for warmer summer weather for those projects but this one was quick and simple.  Here are a couple of bracelets that I made from the sheet music.  They are really cute with the right stylish outfit and I know where they came from so that makes it even better.

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