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The Blue Bowl

Started by Roscoe, March 15, 2014, 05:08:20 PM

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Roscoe

                         

Not exactly a devotional or poem, and maybe it doesn't belong here, but I enjoy writing, as most of you know and was musing on this. Thought I'd post it for critical comments... it may wind up as a blog posting if I ever get around to making a blog...
Mainly wrote for the benefit of my family..... :P

The Blue Bowl
   In my cabinet, and often on my breakfast table, is a small blue glass bowl. This bowl, of little to no value to anyone else, is possibly one of the most valuable possessions I own- to me.
It's not rare thirteenth century Wedgewood china, or edged in fourteen carat gold. It's just a small ceramic/glass bowl, white on the inside and blue glazed outside. The blue exterior is showing several scratches from years of use, and it is only around six to eight inches in diameter.
So why is this bowl valuable to me, when its brethren can be had at flea markets and garage sales countrywide for a couple of dollars at best?
  Well, that bowl has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. You see, my mama was big on family, and breakfasts and suppers at the table every day. Didn't matter what day it was, or what she had to do, there was always a good meal awaiting in Mama's kitchen, and the blue bowl was a star player in every episode.
When I see the bowl, I am no longer a middle aged, slightly overweight man- I am back to being a wide eyed boy of ten, watching my silver haired grandpa eating his breakfast cereal out of it. I can see every hair carefully combed into place, his spotless green shaded Dickies pants and shirts creased, and the smell of Old Spice wafting through the air.
It takes  me back to the days of seeing my mama eat her cereal out of that blue bowl, while admonishing us kids to "hurry up, we have school", just before rushing is off to that little Christian school where she donated her time as a kindergarten teacher...
     And it takes me back to those days when I would hear someone in the kitchen in the wee hours, and I would sneak out quietly to find my Daddy sitting at the table, eating cornbread crumbled into buttermilk in that old bowl for a midnight snack.
There was always room for a hungry boy to fix a quick peanut butter sandwich and talk briefly with Daddy...
Then the hours of listening to Jerry Clower tapes while Mama did the dishes and grandpa and I enjoyed vanilla ice cream or peach cobbler for dessert.
All these memories, tied up in one blue bowl. A relic from a time in my life when no matter how hard my family had it, we had love. It was a time when I was taught right from wrong, and how to treat a woman. I was taught how to be a man of my word, how to fix things, how it wasn't wrong for a man to cry.
The Saturday morning sounds of my Mama praying and speaking to God in the early morning hours before cooking breakfast for the family still ring in my ears, along with the memory of my grandfather patting his foot while we listened to the Grand Ole Opry... the bowl was there for all of this.
Now, my grandfather's has been gone for several years. My Daddy has passed on as well, and Mama lies in a nursing home bed, unaware of anything around her since Alzheimer's has stolen her vibrant life.
   The  bowl- it still survives, as do I. I watch my little one eat out of it occasionally, and I fret and worry that she might drop this incredible treasure and break it. But she knows how precious the bowl is, for I've told her, and she is always careful to take perfect care of it.
  The blue bowl- a piece, albeit a small one, of my foundation, which has molded me and made me what I am today. A physical link to my childhood, and all the happy times I remember from those long ago days, the blue bowl will always hold a place of honor in my house, and maybe in my daughter's house.
That's why that old blue bowl is worth so much....it holds more than cereal, more than soup. It holds a lifetime of memories.
Potstirrer and snoop extraordinaire   "I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world."- Thomas Edison

Lynx

Great.  Now I'm all hungry again, and it's your fault. :P
"Do you sing at church?"
"Yes I sing at church, I sing at home, at work, in the car, at the supermarket, at Wal-Mart..."
:sing: :sing: :sing: :sing: :sing: :sing:

Kim

I too remember that little blue bowl.  In my cabinet is the large yellow one that went with it.  I'm glad I'm not the only one in this family that puts that much sentimental feeling into the things that mean absolutely nothing to anyone else.  Thank you little brother for posting this...it means more than you know.