Tag: 1970s

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Avocado Kitchen of the 1970s

Rabbit, Rabbit.

May brings some notable endings. It’s the first day that it hasn’t been National Poetry Month for the past 30 days, and the first day that there is no organized month-long community writing group occurring. The Stafford Challenge continues, but Slice of Life and VerseLove have concluded for the year. May also brings the end of the school year for students and teachers, and there is a strange sense of winding down and gearing up all at once.

I’m ready for that pause. I have friends retiring this year, and there is a strange mixture of both fear and envy for them. I want to be at the point where I can load the camper and take off for two months and see parts of the country I’ve never seen, just my husband, our three dogs and me. My limited time in the summer, for this year, I hope will satisfy my traveling itch for the coming year.

Today’s paint chip poem is one that I wrote when The Poetry Fox, Chris Vitiello, visited my town. We sat together at the oval table by the window in the far back corner on the night of his visit and wrote several together, then shared. I saw the avocado green paint chip and went straight back to our 1970s kitchen on St. Simons Island, Georgia at 208 Martin Street, where the washer and dryer sat at the carport end of the kitchen.

Avocado Kitchen

avocado kitchen ~ matching

wall phone with a long cord

for those 1970s Velveeta

grilled cheese

Wonder Bread holy sandwiches

the kind made

in a cast iron skillet

by Mama with her black beehive wig

and sleeveless white and yellow daisy

button-down and green Pappagallo strap

sandals while she flitted about

and flipped the toast in the butter and

gossiped with her cigarette-smoking

friend Bonnie Jean about that new

lady vacuum sales rep who

brought skepticism and raised

eyebrows of all the wives…….

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#VerseLove Day 7 with Erica Johnson of Arkansas – Villanelle on the Vine

Erica Johnson of Arkansas is our host for Day 7 of #VerseLove 2025. She inspires us to write poems today about meanings behind favorite flowers using a villanelle. She offers this process: “I started by simply searching for the meaning behind my favorite flowers.  Once I had a list, I selected my favorite connection and started work on shaping that into a villanelle.  Because it is a closed-form poem it has pretty strict rules about rhyme (ABA) and repetition (the 1st and 3rd lines repeat throughout) – this can be challenging, but I find that is also part of the fun!” You can read Erica’s full prompt here.

I chose the Larkspur as my flower, because as a child in the village of St. Simons Island, Georgia, I enjoyed the annual craft fair, where one year in the mid 1970s I got a leather bracelet with my birth flower and name stamped into the leather. Larkspurs symbolize lightheartedness and youth, likely because they grow in the summertime when carefree days are spent away from school.

Village Hippie Villanelle

leather Larkspur bracelet for a July lass

birth month flowers stamped and snapped on thin tan straps

village craft fair hippie, barefoot in the grass

groovy girlfriends ~ running wild, full of sass

softball jerseys, cleats and shorts and backward caps

leather Larkspur bracelet for a July lass

snippy, snappy, clicky clackers ~ spheres of glass

banana seats and wheel spoke straws click and clap

village craft fair hippie, barefoot in the grass

Kissing Potion, Lip Smacker, and Sunjuns (Bass)

macrame and halter tops and treasure maps

leather Larkspur bracelet for a July lass

roller skates and unicycles need no gas

gaucho pants and go-go boots and cowboy chaps

village craft fair hippie, barefoot in the grass

childhood in a decade-era school of class

dancing queens of disco, jazz, ballet, and tap

leather Larkspur bracelet for a July lass

village craft fair hippie, barefoot in the grass

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Hippie Scrapbook Stickers – Stafford Challenge Day 15

I’m having so much fun with The Stafford Challenge that I can’t bear to face my goal chart every month. I’m dropping back to quarterly reflections. Poetry offers more self-care, which I need more right now than thinking of all the things I’m not doing that I should be doing.

So I’m poeming instead.

Hippie Scrapbook Stickers

My childhood scrapbook, filled with stickers

psychedelic colors, hippie

Kim was here!! footprints, daisies,

seventies lettering

mushrooms, all the vibes

coolest era

best music~

Kim is

here!

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A Visit to St. Simons (written on 12/29/2023 at 8:30 p.m)

We are visiting my childhood home today – St. Simons Island, Georgia, on the 8-year anniversary of my mother’s death from Parkinson’s Disease. Although the family house where we grew up has long since been leveled and rebuilt, so much of the 1970s decade is still ever present here on the island. 

When I was young here, the Tastee-Freez was the place we’d go on our bicycles to get ice cream and hot dogs. It has since been a Dairy Queen and now a Frosty’s, but the original poster is still hanging by the door. 

I also love my brother’s dishes, which were our family dishes in the 1970s. This morning, I used a smaller coffee cup and a saucer than I would normally use, just to eat from these dishes. The retro vibe is strong on the olive green pattern. 

It’s a welcome feeling to walk back through the decades. As we go through years of memorabilia with our dad, my brother and I are reliving memories and sharing the stories. Even though the annual “family meeting” is sometimes uncomfortable with the details of how families move forward after losing a loved one, it’s also filled with plenty of time around the table, enjoying great food and laughing. 

As we move into a new year, laughter is a word that I’ve considered as my One Little Word for 2024. It’s surely something that improves my whole outlook! 

We’re missing Mom today, but we know she is close. As my brother and I were driving this morning, a hawk flew directly over us – – a sure signal that all is well in Heaven.