The Keeping Room: Sepia Saturday: Nap & The Little Colonel

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Sepia Saturday: Nap & The Little Colonel

Nap & The Little Colonel

True, Easter is the Holiest of days in the church calendar, but what would it be without all the darling toddlers wearing their adorable little clothes, balancing baskets of Easter eggs, and hugging their new stuffed toys? For today's Sepia Saturday, I offer this cherished image of my husband and his much loved Nap. My mother-in-law gave me this photo during the year that he served in Vietnam. It was taken and processed and developed by his father who was by profession a medical photographer. My best guess is that the photo was taken on Easter of 1947. The Colonel would have been three years old. He was actually born on Easter Sunday of 1944. Imagine the combination of joy and uncertainty at the birth of a first born child just two months before D-Day! Most assuredly, it was the joy that prevailed. And yes, we still have Nap. He is safely stowed away in a cedar chest, but usually appears on Easter mornings wearing a new pale blue ribbon tied in a big bow around his neck.

May Christ's love and sacrifice and the Miracle of the Resurrection

prevail in your spirit this Easter tide.

6 comments:

North County Film Club said...: What a handsome little boy. He looks like a model. How wonderful that you still have Nap!; April 3, 2010 at 8:19 PM
Unknown said...: Hello FireLight,

Memories are made of this! Thank you too for the beautiful Easter card. A Happy Easter to all at Graystone Cottage. Love the new look!; April 4, 2010 at 8:50 AM
alaine@éclectique said...: Here I was, totally absorbed in your lovely story and didn't notice the new look until Derrick mentioned it! Very nice!!

I still have my Son's little white lamb and he's 45 in July! Can't throw it out.

The Colonel was, indeed, a handsome little boy.

Trust you're enjoying a peaceful Easter break. ♥a; April 4, 2010 at 3:24 PM
Virginia said...: Well that 's the dearest photo and I love Nap now too! Thank you for you sweet wishes on my blog and the very same to you and your precious family. We need another gatherin' sistah!
V; April 4, 2010 at 9:59 PM
Tess Kincaid said...: What a priceless photo! I think your Cuyler looks a lot like the Colonel. Wonderful Easter post, FireLight!; April 5, 2010 at 12:50 PM
L. D. said...: What a neat photo and story. I am so glad that you have nap still today.; April 11, 2010 at 5:52 PM

Here is what I often call Crumbly Gingerbread

I found the recipe on a postcard I sent home to a friend when I visited Grasmere in 1986. This is very close to the gingerbread sold at St. Oswald's church there in Grasmere. This is marvelous with your hot tea. The real secret is adding the sugar at the very last-not blending it with the margerine. I use either a fork or pastry blender to "rub" in the margarine with flour and oats. I have copied it as it appeared on the postcard and added my American interpretation of measurements for certain ingredients.

9 oz brown wheatmeal flour
(1 rounded cup wholewheat flour)
3 oz porridge oats
(1/2 cup Three Minute Quaker oats)
3/4 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 level tsp cream of tartar
3 level teaspoons ground ginger
9 oz hard margarine
(1 to 1 1/2 sticks od Parkay-the less you use, the more crumbly the texture)
9 oz soft brown sugar
(1 rounded cup)

Set oven to 325 degrees or Mark 3. Well grease a shallow tin 14" by 9". Put flour, oats, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar, and ginger in a bowl. Add the margarine cut into small pieces. Rub in well with fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar. Put into tin and press down firmly with a floured fork. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until pale brown. Cut into squares whilst warm and leave in tin until completely cold. Keeps well in airtight tin.

The Secret Heart

Here is my Valentine to every parent who remembers looking on a sleeping child...and lingering in the moment....
Enjoy & linger,
Firelight

by Robert P. Tristram Coffin

Across the years he could recall
His father one way best of all.
In the stillest hour of night
The boy awakened to a light.

Half in dreams, he saw his sire
With his great hands full of fire.
The man had struck a match to see
If his son slept peacefully.

He held his palms each side the spark
His love had kindled in the dark.
His two hands were curved apart
In the semblance of a heart.

He wore, it seemed to his small son,
A bare heart on his hidden one,
A heart that gave out such a glow
No son awake could bear to know.

It showed a look upon a face
Too tender for the day to trace.
One instant, it lit all about,
And then the secret heart went out.

But it shone long enough for one
To know that hands held up the sun.

May 20th is the 400th Anniversary of the Publication of Shakespeare's Sonnets: Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! It is an ever fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
William Shakespeare

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Sepia Saturday: Nap & The Little Colonel

6 comments:

About Me