MY WORLD OF SUITCASES

 


My high school graduation gift from my parents was a matched set of luggage because I was headed for a five-week music camp and had nothing to carry all my clothing and etc. in except duffle bags which we’d always used when we went camping in the mountains.  But this music ‘camp’ was being held on a college campus and we were staying in the dorms so duffle bags wouldn’t do it.  The set was beautiful in a black, white, & red tweed vinyl with red satin lining.

Ten years later the largest of the set was strapped to the top of my new husband’s car as we set out for his home in northern California the day after our wedding.

Twenty-nine years after that, the largest case was serving not only as a clothes carrier, but as a writing desk in my tent when I was camping with my Mom at Lake Tahoe in 1997.

Eventually the clasps on the carry-on and train/toiletries case belonging to my original set of luggage broke, so I found this classy duo in a thrift shop to use for weekend trips.

You can see the white carry-on here strapped to the back of the car in 1988 after a trip to the mountains.  Guess I didn’t want to use duffle bags anymore.

In 1992, as I’ve mentioned before, I accompanied a group of high schoolers on a history trip back east.  We were waiting here to check our bags in the San Francisco airport.  My youngest daughter sits by her two pieces of matching green & brown soft-sided luggage.  Not sure where mine was? 

In 2015 when we toured the Scottish highlands and western isles we all got new suitcases by American Tourister – a check bag plus matching carry-on.  I chose red.  My husband chose blue.  And the daughter traveling with us chose bright orange!  

In 2007 I was in a play.  My character was the naïve, lisping daughter of a rich man hoodwinked by the villain who said he would marry and protect her.  Ha!  He just wanted her inheritance when the old man died which the villain was planning to take care of soon!  So there I was in my best dress, carrying all my worldly goods in my little suitcase, ready to follow wherever the villain led.

This was a different sort of play.  There was no out & out hero.  The villain was simply exposed for dastardly fellow he was and carted off by the police.  Meanwhile, my character returned to live with her father.  I’d like to think that at some point a kind-hearted woman came along to show her how to dress and make herself up better so even with her lisp, she might meet a fellow who would one day appreciate and love her for the sweet girl she was. J

I found this wicker suitcase in a thrift shop & use it to store yarn.  It has a blue & white checked fabric lining.  I think it might have originally been a picnic basket?

Last is this little suitcase that belonged to my Grandma Louise and later to my mother and then to me.  It was a vanity case with special places for a matching set of comb & brush & hand- held mirror in the top.  I used it mostly for storage of many different things and held onto it for a long time until we moved three years ago.  The new house was considerably smaller than the one we were moving from with less storage area, so I had to get rid of a lot of things including this sentimental suitcase.  I was kind of sad neither of my daughters wanted it, but they were only 3 and 4 ½ years old when my Grandma Louise passed away so didn’t really know her.  And besides the poor little suitcase was pretty battered by then.

There is a story about it when I was around 12 years old.  I wanted to go swimming at the local swimming pool, but Mom said I couldn’t go unless I had a friend go with me.  Unfortunately, none of my friends was free that day, so Mom wouldn’t let me go.  I was so mad!  I packed my little black suitcase which was mine by then, and told her I was leaving home and off I went.

I walked around our block and then the next one, but pretty soon I began to feel rather stupid – like, where did I think I was going to go??!!  So I headed home.

As I walked in the door Mom, with nary a word about my ‘running away’ (I think she understood how embarrassed I felt about the whole silly thing?) informed me one of my friends had called back saying she could go swimming with me, so I got to go swimming after all.  (And I never ‘ran away’ again.) 

:-> 

La Nightingail

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