A typical conversation with my mother these days goes something like this: She will say: “Where’s my purse? Do you have my purse?” And I will say: “It’s over on your dresser. See?” I point. “Is my checkbook in it?” “No, you don’t have a checkbook anymore.” “Well how do I pay bills? I have to pay my bills.” She’s anxious, so I say brightly, “You don’t have bills anymore,
At first glance, this doll doesn’t look very lovable; in fact, it looks kind of creepy. But for one little girl from the family of Martha Marsh Sutton, a late Nineteenth-century homesteader in Colorado, it was a favored toy. Most dolls at this time were made by hand from scraps of cloth or old clothes, because toys needed to be rather disposable since most families needed to travel great distances
Being a Short Treatise on the Prevalence of Steampunk, or Neo-Victorian Retro-Futurism in Modern Society and Its Associated Philosophical, Social, and Artistic Implications Take three parts science fiction creativity, two parts mechanical ingenuity, and one part aesthetic sensibility. Stir delicately, strain through late 19th Century technology and fashion, and viola: Steampunk. Put simply, the Steampunk movement combines Victorian Age fashion and settings with fantastic steam-and-gear contraptions. One can recognize a
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Obviously, the eating connection is strong for me. But when I was a child, I loved it because it was the only holiday when I did not have to go to church. An hour to an hour and a half is a long time for a kid with ADHD to stay still particularly when the liturgy was in Latin. Plus there was a ton of
What is that rake-looking thing, and why would anyone make it out of glass? Go into the room behind the information desk on the first floor of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, and you’ll find a display of all sorts of weird things like this glass apparatus. But what was it used for? Hint: it’s not a garden tool, but it may have been used by a Gardiner. People flocked
