I bought a pottery kiln six months ago for the wife and she’s been firing it about every month or so. We’re having some problems with warping in the glaze-firing process, so we’ve been experimenting with plate molds of varying wood breeds and thicknesses. It’s been frustrating, but I guess you have to start somewhere. She’s been blogging a bunch of arts and crafts projects lately: Elizabeth Chandler Designs • Project Blog
I traveled to Tuscaloosa, AL yesterday to take part in a funeral and reception for my Uncle Gabe, whose official and honorary pallbearers included some of the more distinguished names in Crimson Tide lore. A smallish tornado had ripped through Birmingham earlier in the morning leaving most of the towns between Moody and Bessemer without power. I caught some intermittent rain from the darkened skies, but otherwise it was a fairly typical drive. By the time the funeral started at 3:00 pm, the winds had really picked up. My uncle requested that we have a party afterwards in order to honor the way he lived, so a reception followed at his home on the waterfront just across the Black Warrior River from the hospital.
The wife’s sewing supplies have dominated the dining room table for a while now. Her brother brought back some fabric from Africa, and she made a retro-looking dress out of it. She also made a tiny dress for a friend’s baby. I’m impressed with how quickly she can turn these things around these days.
Click here to check them out.
Prior to a family reunion a couple of years ago, a relative of mine ran across an interview with my maternal grandfather, Claude Smeraglia, from July of 1968. At the time, he lived and worked in an Italian-American enclave adjacent to the airport in Birmingham, Alabama. The interview was conducted by a Samford University student at the East Side Drug Company, a pharmacy he owned and operated. I’m guessing the student’s thesis was a comparison of past cultural discrimination with the racial discrimination and unrest that dominated the headlines at the time. To put his remarks in context, you need to remember the social and political turmoil of 1968. His thoughts on the growing entitlement mentality and Americans’ demands for cultural assimilation seem eerily prescient.
