McHenry County Blog

So, you’re in trouble.

This magnificant six-inch crystal bowl has ground indentations that remind me of shapes I used to use a ball pern hammer to decorate copper ashtrays and dishes. The cost in Crystal Lake is about $70. At the State of Illinois Museum stores in Chicago and Springfield, the mark-up doubles the price.

You haven’t gotten your wife or girlfriend something for Valentine’s Day that she would consider extra special.

The 8-inch bowl that will be in the center of the table.

Location of Kurt Strobach's home. Click to enlarge.

May I suggest going to the showroom of Crystal Lake’s (Illinois’) master crystal cuter, Kurt Strobach?

Last night my bride offered a hint.

She said she wanted another 6-inch bowl to put with the one she had now and a larger one on our dining room table, but she wanted a different design.

Guess where my son and I went after school.

Strobach operates out of his home at 855 Teverton, which is at the northeast corner of Coventry near Virginia Street Road and Pyott Road.

Give him a call first at 815-459-7377.

There are more photos here.

And you don’t have to limit the presents to Valentine’s Day.

How about her birthday, Mother’s Day, Christmas, your anniversary?

Lowney's Fruit & Nut Chocolates box. In the lower right corner are the words, "A Crest Package."

I finally opened a Lowney’s Fruit & Nut Chocolates box that contained Valentines and Christmas Cards that I thought my grandmother Addie Watling-Skinner had saved.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered my mother, Eleanor Stevens Skinner, had save the contents.

I knew there were Valentines in there, but I also found Christmas cards, her acceptance letter from Washington College, cards and letters from boys from West Point, Trinity College in Connecticut and Catonsville, Maryland.  Courting by letter is a lot different from doing so by phone or texting, I would imagine.  The letters showed fear of rejection, that’s for sure.

None were from my father.  My guess he was too busy working his way through college, holding jobs of egg candling in a market in Southwest Washington that still has a commercial use and a warehouse in the same area on a main highway.  He did have a car though and attended the University of Maryland, so maybe his courting was in person after Mother took a job teaching on the Western Shore.

It appears my mother was on more than one college boy’s mind.

The Valentine was a complicated one of embossed thin cardboard. This bird was attached by the paper tag at the bottom behind the part that says, "To My Valentine." You can see where below. The bird's image is approximately to scale compared to the rest of the card below.

Her one-time farm neighbor, Calvin LeRoy Skinner, was the winner in the marriage stakes.

A cherub seems to be hammering rings on top of the card.

But, not until I was driving him around Queen Anne’s County, Maryland, while he was being treated for lung cancer (from cigarettes, of course) did I even learn that.  Roy, his tenant-farmer father had rented the land next to the Stevens’ family farm near Barclay for a while when they were both in the same class at Sudlersville High School.

You can see the windmill used behind the more ornate stamped images in front.

I can’t be certain that this Valentine is from my father to my mother.  It is “To Eleanor…From Guess Who…Calvin W.”

If this is not from my father, I wonder who "Calvin W." was.

My Dad’s middle initial was “L.”  So, what’s with the “W?”

Did she know two “Calvins?”

Just in case all the hearts that showed up in my house in the last week or two were not enough to catch my attention, look at the hearts my wife was wearing yesterday.

Just in case all the hearts that showed up in my house in the last week or two were not enough to catch my attention, look at the hearts my wife was wearing yesterday.

We got all the Christmas decorations down but the electric candles in the windows.

It’s before Valentine’s Day.

Isn’t that the accepted schedule?

Then, I noticed heart-themed items showing up in the house.

A pillow.

But that might have been around before.

Yes.

I remember.

It’s the one we stick in the microwave oven for a couple of minutes to sooth a hurting muscle.

But, I know the place mats and the dish on the little iron rack are new.

There has been a heart on top of the paper towel holder, but those new cloth hand towels were not there before. (The other ones absorbed water better, so I’d guess the heart-themed ones have not been washed too many times, if at all.)

When I went out to the sun porch to water the plants, I noticed a (new?) table cloth with hearts.

There may be other new hearts around the house, but I get the point.

Think a computer wrapped in pink paper with lots of ribbons and a couple of bunnies—what the Tiger Direct guy suggested—will do?

Really. She says she wants to do scrapbooking.

No…I better buy a card, too.

We got all the Christmas decorations down but the electric candles in the windows.

It’s before Valentine’s Day.

Isn’t that the accepted schedule?

Then, I noticed heart-themed items showing up in the house.

A pillow.

But that might have been around before.

Yes.

I remember.

It’s the one we stick in the microwave oven for a couple of minutes to sooth a hurting muscle.

But, I know the place mats and the dish on the little iron rack are new.

There has been a heart on top of the paper towel holder, but those new cloth hand towels were not there before. (The other ones absorbed water better, so I’d guess the heart-themed ones have not been washed too many times, if at all.)

When I went out to the sun porch to water the plants, I noticed a (new?) table cloth with hearts.

There may be other new hearts around the house, but I get the point.

Think a computer wrapped in pink paper with lots of ribbons and a couple of bunnies—what the Tiger Direct guy suggested—will do?

Really. She says she wants to do scrapbooking.

No…I better buy a card, too.

It’s Valentine’s Day in Lawrence County and Susan Sovereign, my favorite columnist–in the tradition of Erma Brombeck–wrote a column for the Sumner Press the year before last that I forgot to post last Valentine’s Day.

Sorry, I don’t have the time to re-type it to make it easier to read. It’s been sitting at the top of my blog article screen ever since.

Click to enlarge column.
     

To return to McHenry County Blog, click here.

It’s Valentine’s Day in Lawrence County and Susan Sovereign, my favorite columnist–in the tradition of Erma Brombeck–wrote a column for the Sumner Press the year before last that I forgot to post last Valentine’s Day.

Sorry, I don’t have the time to re-type it to make it easier to read. It’s been sitting at the top of my blog article screen ever since.

Click to enlarge column.
     

To return to McHenry County Blog, click here.