17 - Favorite Things
Jonathan: All right. Mom, it’s December 20, 2025. And it’s 9 o’clock in the morning, Saturday morning.
Laura: Yep.
Jonathan: And we’re talking again. We’ve got a couple of different things that we could talk about. I put some questions to you earlier.
Laura: Well, let’s just go down the list. I read them last night. how I learned to drive and what’s my favorite season.
Jonathan: So just go down the list. All right, all right. Well, the first block of questions is about nature. What is your favorite season and is there a reason why?
Laura: Oh, the fall because at my yard, the colors are spectacular.
Jonathan: You’ve got a least favorite somewhere in there too?
Laura: Well, the winter, I’m always worried about all my family traveling in Michigan. This week on Thursday, there were 260 schools canceled.
Cars were sliding off into ditches. They weren’t even hitting each other. And it was because We had had rain and all of a sudden it was 20 degrees and snow and it kind of hid the ice underneath. So it was just treacherous driving. And my kids in Michigan have to get to work. John goes to Holland.
Sometimes I think that he’s allowed to work from home if it’s terrible. But we’ve had crazy weather, particularly this year, this early. To be near zero at Christmastime is not usual.
Jonathan: Sure. Sometimes you don’t even have snow by Christmas.
Laura: Yeah.
Jonathan: OK. Well, so those are seasons. Do you have a favorite time of day?
Laura: Oh, I guess.
I love watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. So that would be between seven and eight o’clock. And I know everybody I love is watching it too, because Aunt Connie will email me remarks. And when the two shows are over, Heidi and Jean always call me to say, you know, who did you want to win? And did you know the answer to blah, blah, blah? And we will talk about Details of the show so they’re as hooked as I am and I’m always amazed when we watch it together if Jean and Heidi come over here Jean knows so many of the answers I don’t But to that hour of the day is always fun and I always have contact with people I love when it’s over
Jonathan: That is a tradition that has gone on for a long time. I think that’s multiple years that they used to come to your home every Thursday or something like that and watch it with you, but that they are calling you every day. That’s kind of special, Mom.
Laura: I know that it is. What a nice connection.
Jonathan: Well, let’s see. Let’s talk about experiences you’ve had with nature and maybe reflect on the earliest experiences you had as a child outdoors, things that you might’ve done with your parents or your friends that made an impression on you.
Laura: Well, this was during World War II and my father’s church had a huge collection and sent a lot of clothes to the Netherlands. I mean, tubs full. And the people in the Netherlands, when the war was almost over, they sent back thousands and thousands of tulip bulbs. So my experience in the outdoors was the janitor of the church came and Um, we had unbelievably huge tulip gardens around the whole house to the point where the local newspaper came and took pictures. Well my experience with that was this was the first time in my life that I got paid to work now getting paid. I’m thinking maybe at the end of the day, the janitor gave me 50 cents. But it was such a big deal to me that because I didn’t get an allowance, I never really handled much money. So for him to come and hire me to help him plant and then weed and service these huge gardens and get paid for it, that was my happiest encounter with nature at a young age.
Jonathan: That’s fun. That’s fun. So thinking a little bit later, you’ve traveled a lot and you’ve seen mountain ranges and oceans and shores and, and planes. What, what stands out in your memory for some of the most beautiful places you’ve visited?
Laura: Well, Connie paid for me and she to go to Alaska on a cruise. And so I got to see mountains. with snow in the distance. And I got to see a lot of whales, sharks, things like that from the deck of the ship.
So I’m thinking that was where there are plenty of other times you know the funny story about Zion. And when we went camping, I was always at the wheel of the car. But on that ship, I was free to look and enjoy. And so I’m thinking that seeing and marveling at nature, that was probably the greatest moment.
Jonathan: Nice. Nice. What a thoughtful gift from Connie.
Laura: And yes, not only that, but it was a precious time that we spent together.
Jonathan: Just the two of you know, none of her kids, none of them. Yep. Just to concentrate on time. Yep. You flew, you drove maybe down to Chicago and then flew from there together. Or did you even accompany each other on the airplane? I’m not sure.
Laura: I don’t remember that part of it.
Jonathan: Okay. But you were on a boat for more than three or four days, I guess.
Laura: Oh, yes.
Jonathan: What a neat experience.
Okay, well, go tell me more.
Laura: Well, now we get to my driving.
Jonathan: Yeah, that’s another topic. We talk about cars and vehicles.
Laura: Well, you know that it was very difficult time during the war and my dad, his job required that he visited the sick and so a car was essential and he finally got a used Hudson, but I was not driving then. Then, when we moved to Grand Rapids, my dad started to teach me how to drive. They didn’t have driving lessons at schools yet, and I was in high school, just beginning, and dad had a little blue two-door Chevy coupe, little small car. And the only time I would drive is with him sitting in the passenger seat. And that wasn’t that much. And grandpa Gezon was exasperated why I was old enough. Wouldn’t my parents let me drive by myself and come to see him in Wyoming park. So one day he walked in the house. He slapped $300 on the kitchen table and said to my mother, that is Laura’s share of the car.
And it was soon after that I got my license. However, I only had my license a few days and our driveway was a little slope and I got out of the car and went into the house having left the car in neutral. And amazingly, the car rolled down the driveway across Burton Street. Now, Burton was a very busy street, but it didn’t hit any cars on the way across the street going backwards, and it ran into a cement little small ridge that was the edge of that neighbor’s yard. So my beginning to drive was not very wise. However, my occasion to drive was very, very slim because there was a cross country, there was a cross city bus that I got on the corner of Clyde Park and that took me everywhere. And in those days, bus rides for students was very cheap. So I don’t recall being able to drive at night or being able to drive to school. And before I finished high school, and started college, my father and mother moved to New Jersey. So then the car went with them. And so I didn’t have a car to drive at first. However, I did buy a car because after working at A&T and T for almost a year, I was hired in the actually the winter to begin teaching in a school at Walker, which was quite a ride from Grandpa and Agnes’ house. And I cannot recall what car I had, but I did have my own car then. That was the first time. And I was accident-free for many years.
Jonathan: That would have been it. Let me go back for just a second. That happened while you were living at the Gezons that you got that job and you bought that car. Is that correct? Correct. Yeah. How many months do you think you stayed at the Gezons?
Laura: From April?
Let’s see.
I think it was sooner than that, until my wedding, which was in August. So it would have been about a half a year.
Jonathan: OK. I was thinking it was longer than that. But yeah. A follow-up question, too, is just a little bit unrelated. But you’ve mentioned a couple of times the World War II. How old would you have been when that was going on?
Laura: 18, 19, 20.
Jonathan: You’re fully aware of the turmoil in the front of mind for you.
Laura: Actually, it would have been 17, 18. Yeah.
Jonathan: OK.
Laura: It was the bulk of my high school and college days. OK.
Laura: It was also, what I remember was A number of the boys that I graduated from high school with were going off in the army instead of starting college.
Jonathan: Right. Yeah, somehow I didn’t really make that a connection before that you were a young adult when all that happened. And what a uncertain time.
All right, let’s get back to cars and vehicles, though. So when you had a car, who do you think would have helped you select that car? That would have been the biggest thing you purchased in your life at that point.
Laura: Perhaps Bob did already. OK.
The first time I really owned a car and used it regularly was when I was teaching at Walker. When I worked at AT&T, I think at the end of that period I bought the car, but most of the time I took the bus to my job. So I know I didn’t have a car when mom and dad moved away and when I first lived in Gezon’s house.
Jonathan: Got you, got you. OK, let’s think of all the different cars that you’ve owned over the years. Is there a car that stands out in your memory more than the others?
Laura: Well, of course, the suburban packed eight kids, two chels, a dog. In those days, I don’t remember seat belts. And but I do remember my most favorite car when I first was teaching that this would have been maybe Walker, that it was a little Volkswagen.
And it’s amazing to me the shape of that car. You still see them all over the place.
Jonathan: Was it a beetle?
Laura: Yeah.
Jonathan: Uh-huh. So your dad had a beetle that I think they traveled. He and Ruth traveled through Europe and then had shipped. Remember that blue beetle? Yep. Yep. Is that the one you’re thinking of too or was there a second one?
Laura: The car that I got was not originally my dad’s car. I don’t know how I shopped for it. I don’t remember the details of that, but I needed a car to get to Walker from Wyoming park.
Jonathan: Okay. Is there a car that you’ve always wanted that you never, that you never got?
Laura: Well not really. Uh, the suburban was so nice for such a big family. And we ended up traveling all over the country in that suburban, really.
That’s the car that we almost lost Bobby in. Remember this story about my leaving him. The car was so packed that when everybody got in, I didn’t count heads.
But that was a nice, comfortable, safe car.
Jonathan: I remember that very would stand out going down the road for its color.
Laura: It was light green, wasn’t it?
Jonathan: Yeah, like a pea green.
Laura: Yeah.
Jonathan: Well, you want to are there other things about vehicles or nature that you want to talk about before we go on to the next topic? Let’s go on. OK. So this is more like sports and pursuits like that. But how old were you when you learned to swim and who taught you?
Laura: Well, when we were in Grand Rapids, my mom enrolled us in the Y, I think my sister and I. And that’s where I learned to swim, but I never Learned to swim many distances. And my two strokes were the side stroke and the back stroke. And I did not like ever swimming with my head in the water, my face in the water. So to this day, when I go to the pool, usually I backstroke. That’s relaxing. I never did swim lengths or swim a long time. And in Lake Michigan, the only thing we did, we would walk out a distance and then we would lay on our stomach and let the waves push us to shore. But that wasn’t really swimming, it was just floating.
Jonathan: Understood. The Lake Michigan would have been one of your favorite places maybe to swim, but were there others that come to mind?
Laura: No, Lake Michigan was it.
Jonathan: So think about other games that you did with your friends or in your neighborhood. Do you recall childhood games or maybe board games that you played or card games that you played with your family?
Laura: Well, we played canasta for years. And especially at the cottage every night, canasta would be two hours long. And it would include the whole family, mom and dad, and not all of the kids. I don’t remember the boys playing, but Connie and I.
When I was young in New Jersey, we played hide and seek. We played hopscotch.
I never played baseball, softball, any of those kinds. I got a tennis racket when I was in Grand Rapids, but I never really was very good at it. And finding a place to play was a little trick then. In fact, at the Y they had classes and they had indoor tennis situations. But when I think back on living in New Jersey and even living in Grand Rapids, I can’t remember where we went to play tennis. I think perhaps it was Lee Street High School in that area in Grand Rapids. But not that often because nobody else in my family played tennis. I did have a tennis racket, and I don’t know how I ever got it. But at any rate, I never was on a baseball softball team. I was always a spectator.
Jonathan: Understood. OK. Well, one of the next topics we could talk about would be music. And I think music’s been a big part of your life. Talk to me a little bit about music that you heard at home and your early introduction to music.
Laura: Well, my mom was a wonderful jazz pianist, and she played it all by ear. She could play honky tonk piano. at any place. And people didn’t know that at first. What’s interesting is when she was losing her mind and in a nursing home, she would sit down the piano and she’d still recall all the jazz from her youth. And I have a file right now of all her piano and jazz music still. I started piano lessons when I was in New Jersey. And I remember this, that my piano teacher had a manicure scissors on the side of the piano and if she heard any click, click, click, she would trim my nails because I had to have a hand position as though I was holding a tennis ball underneath and grabbing it, I had to have my fingers pointed down into the piano keys. And the thing that she emphasized more than anything, more than reading the music was my hand positions. And she showed me how that in the future would make my fingers move very fast. So that’s my only memory of my piano teacher and piano lessons. But when I got to Grand Rapids.
Jonathan: And I want to pause you just a second so we don’t get too far away from it. How is it that you chose to play piano? Was that your own choice or do you recall?
Laura: I think my mother led me there. We always had a piano in our house.
Jonathan: And I want to follow up also. So I remember your dad had a TV, but did you did you have a radio in your house or did you as a family, did you ever listen to the radio?
Laura: I think I remember listening to classic music on a record player. We had discs. And that was sort of rare.
Jonathan: Yeah. Who do you think that would have originated from, your mom or your dad?
Laura: My mom.
Jonathan: Uh-huh. So most jazz pianists, a lot of them, have formal training. And they start with more classical training. And I wonder whether your mom went through that trajectory, if she had music lessons.
Laura: I have no idea. But I know this. She was so popular in high school and particularly at Calvin. She was invited to all kinds of affairs and parties because she would always play her honky-tonk piano and it was very entertaining and she projected then a very happy
talented piano player.
Jonathan: Your mom fascinates me. How do you know this about her, that in college she was more gregarious than she was later in life?
Laura: Her friends would tell me. One of her best friends was Wynne Haake, all the way through college. Wynne would tell me about the parties that she… The other thing was She had a car.
And nobody at Calvin in those days, especially girls, had a car.
So that made her, between her music and obviously some sense of wealth, she was very popular.
Jonathan: Interesting.
All right, so let me ask you, you mentioned you didn’t participate in a team sport sort of thing, but did you participate in like a choir or play piano with an orchestra or anything like that?
Laura: I sang in a choir all the way from junior high through high school. Trina Hahn was the director at that time. And she was wonderful and the choirs were very, very good.
We had multiple concerts and every year there would be that time when if you sang in a choir or you were a soloist, they had these days where you played for judges. and got a ratings in high school. I remember that very well. In fact, I ended up writing an article for the press about that very experience.
Jonathan: Right. Right. All right. So and we talked about this a little bit before. I remember you described your you transitioned from playing just piano to playing organ. And you had a very gifted teacher at A3 forum, I think that would would get you playing, and then she would walk around, and she had you practice hymns in the final verse. You talked about that earlier.
Laura: But can you tell me? That was my first organ teacher was Francis Rose at 8th Reformed. It was Alice Lantinga at the grave, who was the one who drilled me on how to accompany a congregation with hymns and how to make hymns grow in excitement and also variety of accompaniments. But I learned that at Le Grave. When I was playing the organ at A3 Formed, what was interesting was Matthew, oh boy, I can’t think of the last name. The choir director got me to accompany choir quite quickly and that was a real challenge to me because piano accompaniments were not that easy and you had to be watching the director and not your keyboard. Accompanying a choir became a big challenge for me at first. And the other thing was because we were on the radio every Sunday morning, my performance was critical. I had to be accurate. And Francis Rose was the one who introduced me to all the fugues, Bach fugues, which I love to this day.
Jonathan: Do you know what a fugue is? Sure. Absolutely. theme and variation, right?
Laura: I mean, it’s a… Well, there is a beginning melody, but that melody continually is repeated in the left hand and the pedals. So, a fugue is a basic tune that is melded into the whole piece with different accompaniments and different settings and different rhythms.
Jonathan: It’s fun to hear you talk about being on the radio and the challenge of piano accompaniment of a choir.
Your parents didn’t need to monitor how many minutes a day you practiced, I guess. You had a lot of initiative for these things.
Laura: I love to practice. I spent so much time in the church.
Jonathan: Yeah, that’s neat. So when you think of music you’ve played or listened to, you may have already just told me this, is there a type of music or a composer that you have as a favorite or that you never tire of listening to?
Laura: Bach.
I think that all of his Music is beautiful. Choral and piano and organ.
Jonathan: Do you have a favorite musical era?
Laura: Not really.
Jonathan: Okay. Any other things related to music that you’d like to share?
Laura: I felt that music was a pleasure, trying to think of the right word, a healthy exercise.
And it was so important to me that I pushed it onto every one of my children. Every single one of my kids was enrolled in some kind of music lessons, and some of them went a long way. Scott resisted until we talked about drums. He never owned a drum. He owned the sticks, and he’d use them on wood and something or other. And we couldn’t stand to listen to him practice in the house. He’d go out in the garage. And so Scott never developed into a musician. Ted played the trumpet for a while, but he didn’t really go anywhere. But all the others were dead serious. And their musical skills ended up giving them experiences at Interlochen with the Grand Rapids Symphony and their Junior Corps orchestras.
Many of them, even today still, I have tapes of their playing. And they have memories that they’ll talk about.
And actually at Connie’s wedding, the four kids played a quartet and provided the music. The wedding was at Calvin’s chapel and Heidi on viola. Mimi on violin, and the two boys on cellos.
And it was a nice combination.
Jonathan: I remember that.
Laura: Not only that, but my kids got a reputation. At Fuller, the boys played for a senior club meeting one night. And I sat in the back row. And after they finished playing, the announcer stood up and said, Laura, could the boys play some more? Like I was the one who it was a permission thing.
I think my boys played at the grave.
Heidi.
got into basketball and that interfered somewhat in her continuing to play a lot.
But at any rate, it’s amazing that the music in our family required expensive lessons, many hours practicing when everybody would be in the house and you couldn’t all play at the same time in practice. I don’t know how we coordinated that. However, they did have a system of recording how long they had practiced on the refrigerator. And we had an agreement of so many hours a week, and they had to post every day when they practiced in 30 minutes or whatever. And the deal was if they got their time in, and I think it must have been like five or six hours a week, then I paid for their lessons. And if they didn’t get all their time in, they had to pay. And what was so interesting, I never watched them post because if anybody lied about it and said they put an hour on, one of their siblings would say that was only 30 minutes. They were monitoring each other. So the record on the refrigerator door was pretty accurate.
Jonathan: That’s a funny memory, mom. And I remember the, the idea that you had to pay for your lesson. I don’t know that we got held to that very regularly, but it was, there was always that threat out there to motivate us.
Yeah.
Well, one other topic for you today, arts and creativity.
Care to reflect on ways that art was a part of your childhood or schooling?
Laura: It was not much part of my.
The only thing I became creative about was crafts. where I would use disposable things to make something.
I’ve got something right here I’m going to get and show you.
It’s a trick for me to get up.
When I retired and I was teaching crafts in an inner city school to poverty stricken kids, you knew they would never get into a craft store and buy supplies. So everything we made had to be disposable or easily cheaply available. Well, this was one of them.
Can you see it?
Jonathan: I can’t. I don’t know what it is, though. It looks like an elephant.
Laura: It’s a.
Plant water. OK, you see you fill it, huh?
Jonathan: Oh, all right, I see the eyes. That’s pretty clever, mom.
Laura: Well, that’s all made from junk.
Jonathan: And how is that something you’ve made recently, or what is the origin of that particular one?
Laura: I just noticed it in the closet and remembered that that was something that we made in that club for Mother’s Day to give to our mothers. And the way I got that was I asked the kitchen at the school to please save all their milk jugs because it took a few jugs to make this. You had to have two handles, you see, one for the water out and the other was to hold it. And then all I had to supply was something for the ears and two eyes. So the kids,
took those home for Mother’s Day present.
I made a lot of stuff from just junk. For instance, we made potholders out of slices of socks that had holes in them.
It was very easy to get people to save their old socks.
That time that I spent with those girls made me so shocked because this was just a couple of miles away from where I taught for 28 years and the population was so totally different. How could that be that the poverty was so evident in their lifestyle, what they wore, what they talked about, and it just made me aware of class distinctions very close to where I worked and where I lived.
Jonathan: This is a neat ministry that you were involved in doing that, Mom. I know you’ve affected a lot of kids’ lives that way.
Laura: Well, I end up having stories in the press about me about that.
Jonathan: Let me let me ask you when you were at home still with your parents. I get a sense your dad would take you to New York and would going to art museums or that sort of thing. Was that part of your upbringing?
Laura: The truth is, it was my mother that took me to New York. It always started out with Radio City Music Hall.
And then there was a place where she loved to go for lunch. And that was, we never went to restaurants when we were in Patterson. But when we went to New York, we would take the Susquehanna Railroad into Grand Central Station. We would walk to Radio City Music Hall. The show we would do would be usually a morning show that would end just about the time we would eat lunch. And a couple of times she took me to a radio show. NBC, you could be in the audience of some Oh, like quiz shows or things like that.
And I remember one of them, after the show they did some questions in the audience and then based on your answers they asked ten people to come forward and they questioned them for the next day’s show. because there was a panel of maybe four people on the show. And I was one of the 10 that was asked to come and answer questions, but I was not picked to be in the show the next day. But I remember that was with my mom, and we sat through the show. And I think it might even have been a television program, but it was not a title that I can think of now. And I know it wasn’t like Jeopardy or what is it?
The Price is Right, you know, those kinds of shows.
Jonathan: Sure, sure. What a fun experience to share with your mom. Do you remember your mom’s reaction when you were picked as one of the ten?
Laura: No, I don’t. But but it was short and sweet. And people were leaving. And it was noisy. And it seems to me that it wasn’t just me and my mom that Connie might have been there too. But the details of it I don’t remember. All I remember was we stayed on because when they asked some kind of question and I answered it, that was how they chose me to be interviewed beyond that first exposure.
Jonathan: For some reason, I always think of it as being your dad. That was the impetus for taking you to New York, but it was your mom more.
Laura: Oh yes. It was always mom. Dad never. Okay. When dad had what did he, he was hospitalized for some reason. So he was handicapped. in a way he was limited in his physical activities. And he took me and Connie to New York.
And on that day, there was a huge snowstorm.
Jonathan: You told me about this earlier with help getting a car out of the ditch or something.
Laura: Yes. So he took We took the bus downtown to the Sequana railroad station and took that to New York and then took the Sequana back. But when we got back to Patterson, the bus going north was not running because it was icy. So we had to walk quite a long distance. And as we walked, we saw in front of our house somebody who was stuck. Now, my dad was already physically disabled in some way. So the whole experience was terrifying because we were worried about him. And then lo and behold, he helps this woman get out of the mess she was in when we finally got home exhausted. And the weather was terrible and icy. So I could never forget that experience.
Jonathan: And your sister was with you. It was the three of you. Yeah. So tell me, your mom would have familiarity of New York from her education. She was going after a librarian degree, I think.
Laura: Yes.
Jonathan: And did she have other experience there? What was her connection with that city?
Laura: Nothing more than she loved Radio City Music Hall. Later in life, she ended up getting a degree and dad would drive her there and they would go together. Um, but she never worked there or lived there. And I think that the radio city music hall and the rocket dancers, that was the big draw.
Jonathan: Okay. What a fun time shared with her and your sister and your, at a certain point your whole family would go or do you believe that happened at some point?
Laura: No, I never remember the boys going.
Jonathan: Okay. So there’s another, I’m gonna shift on you a little bit. The other area of art that people that know you would ask you about would be your quilting and your sewing.
Laura: Well, I’m sort of self-taught sewing.
When I got my first sewing machine, the company where I bought it had a class. And they were all old ladies, old ladies and me. And I watched what they did, but actually I ended up flying a magazine that gave me all kinds of hints about how to make a quilt. Right now, I think I probably have 300 magazines downstairs over the years that I’ve collected that teach quilting, sewing, knitting, and craft ideas. In fact, I’m hoping to find a rest home where they would take those just because I think that people in a rest home would enjoy looking for new ideas of things to make, knitting, crocheting and stuff like that. So I’d like to find a place for them now because over the years I’ve accumulated a lot of them.
Jonathan: So this first sewing machine, I think I remember that machine you’ve sewed Nagahai cello cases and maybe your wedding dress on that convertible, wooden sewing machine, a Singer, I think it was. Yep, yep. And you bought that new from, you remember the store that you bought it from even?
Laura: No, I don’t remember the store.
Jonathan: Okay. But they had the class and that sort of thing.
Laura: Oh dear. Let me see. It’s a call from Ted. Hello, Ted. I’m okay. I am interviewing with Jody right now. He’s doing this every Saturday.
Yes, I’ve got a list, but I need to go to all these myself. So I’ve got a white nice plate of yours.
All right, OK. OK. Well, the plate will wait until you come again.
Okay. All right. I’ll talk to you then.
Bye.
You know, Ted is a lonely, unhappy man.
Jonathan: Mom, probably good not to go too deep into this subject.
Laura: But what’s amazing is how good he is to me. Okay. And he never comes here without bringing me something. So the last time he came, I still, I’m looking at the big white, beautiful tape plate that he had half a Turkey on. He boned it all for me. And that’s what he brought me the last time he came.
Jonathan: Very nice.
Laura: I know. And so he, he’s just telling me the what’s berries that are on sale. Do I want some? He’s always thoughtful and I’m so happy I have that connection with him. The other thing I’m happy about is he’s participating in two different Bible studies. And then that often includes lunch or a meal. And he gets invitations to those people’s houses. So his moving to Lake Odessa and his owning a house all by himself has proved to be a new purpose for living in his life. And I think that is the one thing that brings him fulfillment and joy.
Jonathan: Well, I’m glad to hear that, Mom. Glad to hear he’s looking out for you. That’s really nice.
Laura: Yes. Oh, he did so much work in my yard. The trim and all the dead trees that are down. There are five humongous piles that have to be burned. Now, when he does that, He calls the fire department to tell him he’s in it. And it takes a whole day. He’s here all day burning. So that’s a project now. With the snow on the ground, I think soon he’s going to be doing it again.
Jonathan: OK.
Mom, before Ted called, we were talking about quilts. Were there other things you wanted to share about quilts or sewing?
Laura: Well, I’m working on one right now. I’ll get it right here and show you. Now this is a quilt. It takes first of all a lot of planning and cutting and then all the little pieces are sewn together and then you’re supposed to match their corners exactly which I’m not good at.
Okay, here’s here’s half of it. Can you see it?
Jonathan: Yeah, it’s beautiful.
That’s very nice.
Laura: All the little tiny pieces that means hours and hours. And so that’s what I’ve been doing is right now I’ve been doing a lot of cutting.
I think every one of my kids has some Do you have a quilt for me? I know.
Jonathan: Yeah, multiple. Yeah, absolutely.
Laura: Because I remember the sailboat sign that was in your son’s bedroom.
Jonathan: Yeah, that’s right.
You have gifted us with many things like that. They’re very nice.
Well, mom, all the things relating to our conversation today that you’d like to come back to?
Laura: Well, sewing, knitting, quilting, those are wonderful ways, especially now, to pass my time. And it just always feels good to finish some project like that.
I have a dilemma. Right now, I think there are five or six baby quilts and four or five big quilts downstairs that I should be getting rid of, because when I’m gone, who’s going to get them?
Jonathan: Well, Mom, those are the questions I had for you today.
I’ll come up with another list for you next week and same time next week. Okay. Sounds good. It was a pleasure talking with you today.
Laura: Well, thank you for the time you’re taking to do this, Jody.
Jonathan: Well, it’s fine. I’m learning lots of interesting stuff, Mom. It’s a treat to talk to you.
Laura: Well, be safe. I’ll look forward to a hearing from you again.
Jonathan: All right. Take care.
Laura: Bye bye.