The Receipt

Over the weekend I was frantically searching for my mom's recipe for Blueberry Buckle. I needed it for a blog post I was working on, soon to be seen on the website of a national grocery store chain.

I couldn't find the recipe anywhere because I never, EVER, put things back in the wrong place after I'm done using them.

 I DID, however, find a receipt, tucked into my recipe box, exactly where it belonged. But this wasn't just any receipt, it was a 58-year-old, slightly yellowed, handwritten store receipt from Sun Vacuum Stores, Inc, in Newark, New Jersey, when my Granny purchased her sewing machine in 1954.

This receipt brought back so many memories.

I have that sewing machine she bought in 1954. It's in my attic. I'd go get it to take a picture of it, too, but that little falling-through-the-ceiling-while-retrieving-Christmas-decorations incident has taught me never to go into the attic when no one else is home.

Plus that sewing machine weighs A TON, all steel and cast iron, no plastic parts, made in the U.S of A.

I learned to sew on that machine. My mom had taught me the basics, on another no-plastic parts model she probably bought in the early 1970s, but it was my Granny's machine that I packed up and shipped to Germany with my household goods when I moved overseas.

I'd set it up on my kitchen table and the sturdy machine made the not-so-sturdy table wobble. I spent hours at that machine, clumsily fashioning curtains, table linens, chair covers, blankets, and when I got a bit more adventurous and skilled, dresses. The machine featured two stitches - straight and zig zag. It only had one bobbin and a metal lever to raise and lower the presser foot.

It had a foot pedal for operation and used to hum merrily as the silver needle and bobbin whirred into action. The machine came with me back to the States, to Texas, and hemmed the soft flannel of my boys' baby blankets.

One day, I noticed the cords on the trusty machine were badly frayed. I knew I shouldn't use it any longer. I did ask a friend in the business to guess how much they'd be to replace. She shook her head sadly, "They just don't make them like that any more."

I'm sure I could get them replaced if I were determined to do so. I eventually got a shiny new sewing machine, full of plastic parts, which sits on a shelf in my laundry room. I never have mastered the multiple dials and settings and electronic presser foot on the new machine.

Maybe someday I'll channel my Granny again and pull out the new machine again. But I couldn't tell you, for the life of me, where that receipt would be.