Attic treasures: archives and memories

Throwback Thursday on Monday . . . Bear with me as I reminisce!


I hadn't been up in the attic for a long time though it is easy to get to with a pull-down ladder in the hallway.  I use it for archival storage -- keepsakes I can't bear to part with but don't need to see every day.  I've been in a bit of a cleaning-out mood of late and decided it was time to venture up.




Over the years I've acquired a lot of Alpha Gamma Delta swag.  Some of this was in the attic, some was in the basement.  I boxed it all up and sent it to AGD International Headquarters for their archives.

The ponte knit pantsuit was my travel outfit when I was a chapter consultant in 1974-75.  I wore other clothes from that year for a long time afterward but because this had the coat-of-arms patch it went into storage, first at my parent's house and then at mine.  At the top right is AGD-print fabric from 1979. It's bottom-weight twill, poly-cotton, too heavy for quilting. I made a skirt and thought I'd make totebags or aprons but never did.

I found these notebooks in a box in the home office closet. They're from 1992 (two notebooks), 1994, and 2000.

Out they go!  I am still a library advocate but I will rely on more current data.

Note the medium I used to record pithy quotations.  (The catalog cards are from the Auburn Public Library.)

These are annotated book lists from long-ago reading programs.

In 1985 APL was selected for a pilot "Let's Talk About It" reading-and-discussion  sponsored by the Maine Humanities Council with a grant from NEH. I remember having to explain what a book discussion entailed. The initial program ("Working") led to my involvement with planning additional thematic programs.  The brochure at the lower left is from The Constitution at 200 -- a program we held in the spring of 2007, 30 years ago!  (I remember the coordinators' seminar the previous summer. Stevens, son Harry (then 14) and I spent a few days with S's mother in New Jersey. We went into the city for a day.  We went to the top of the Empire State Building. Harry and I looked over the edge, marveling at the view and the excitement of city traffic. Stevens braced himself against the inner wall, his face green. Heights are not for him!....Later we were near Central Park and a man passing in the crowd greeted Harry.  Both Stevens and I were ready to pull Harry along (stranger danger!)  But the man was actually someone he knew, a teacher he'd had in Florida.....Back to the reading program:  We drove back to Maine by way of Vermont. Stevens and Harry dropped me off at the Ascutney Mountain Resort. That was the location for the seminar for The Constitution at 200 site coordinators from the six New England states.  I got a ride back home with the librarian from Castine.)

 Poignant:  my mother's purse calendars from 2000 and 2001 and her appointment book from 2001.  She always wrote down the dinner entree. She prided herself on making varied recipes. (And the results were tasty.)

Our family vacation fifty years ago was to Expo 67.   The melamine ashtray was in a box in the attic labeled "keepsakes."  I remember that it was behind the bar in the basement family room at home. (The bar came with the house. My parents used it as a catch-all, not as a party center.)

The circle pin has always been in my jewelry box, jewelry store box and all.  I wear it once a year or so. I get compliments, though people think it's a snowflake or something until I remind them of Expo.