My LL Bean Boat & Tote

Grew up with these excellent bags - they were our "swim club" bag.  The.best.qualilty.bag.of.its.sort.  LL Bean has improved the bag tremendously over the years with various sizes, a zipper top option, and different colors.

I have no clue if other people have done this, but here is how we personalized it.  We brought the patches to a shoe maker.  Unless you have a heavy duty sewing machine, don't kid yourself that you can take this on by yourself.  The canvas is thick and if you want a good, solid job done, pay the approximate $5 per patch to have it sewn on and do it right.  No, you can not rely on the iron-on stickiness on the back of the patches.  Don't be cheap.  Bring it to your shoemaker.  And if you bring more patches, maybe you can strike a bulk deal.

It is still a work in progress, there may be more patches to come, but this is it for 2012...

Our patched up LL Bean Boat & Tote Bag.  It has an outdoorsy, New York State, Canadian, heady feel.  We so LOVE our bag!

From top left, clockwise:  Lake Placid, NY, Appalacian Trail (The "AT"), Canadian maple leaf (with deep Canadian roots, I can legitamately state "Oh Canada, my home and native land"...BTW do yo know how long this patch has been sitting around?  Likely since 2000!  Time to use up the stuff lying around!), and 2012 Phamily (purchased at the recent Atlantic City  Phish show, from Phanbadge...btw how thrilled was I to find this?  I suggested to Brian, the purveyor of Phanbadge, that he check out this blog, since I surmised he was a family guy however just like most folks, this stuff is still quite verbose so little expectation there).

Long Lake, just one of the many stops we have made in the Adirondacks over the years, Stealie - Grateful Dead 

From top left, clockwise:  Bronx Zoo, our backyard playground for 5 years when we resided in the Bronx, NYS Environmental Conservation Junior Naturalist acquired when we car camped when Concealed Light was 3 and the Wolfman was 1, Swimmer vintage circa late 70s/early 80s this person definitely was a star swimmer! (I personally never got to swimmer level, only to Intermediate, don't think American Red Cross uses these designations anymore, but do you remember Beginner, Advanced Beginner, Intermediate, Swimmer, and what was next?)

other side of the bag

From ADK Outlet in Lake Placid; I waxed poetic about them in another post

Here is what LL Bean wrote to me:

Dear Ms. Loonin,

Thank you for contacting L.L.Bean with the great story of your Boat and Tote bag. It brought smiles to me and my peers faces.  I have forwarded you email to our Corporate Office to let them see your Boat and Tote bag.

Thank you again for contacting L.L.Bean Ms. Loonin. I am hoping someday to see an update with more patches.

Sincerely,
Heather B.
L.L.Bean Customer Service
            800-441-5713      
llbean.com

100 Years of Satisfied Customers
Shipped for Free | Guaranteed to Last

Where Are You From? Oh Canada, My Home and Native Land...

My Grandpa Archie Medjuck was born and raised on Nova Scotia (that is a province of Canada for all of us still-in-the-dark United States residents).  Cape Breton to be specific.  He was born in a little town called Calendonia and grew up in the nearby mining town of Glace Bay.

Grandma Mayme and Grandpa Archie Medjuck with me as a baby

If you didn't know me (well, Molly as a middle name isn't overtly Semitic), ya'd think we were Scottish and our elder male members wore kilts on dressy occassions.  And drank a lot.  No such luck:  We were just like any other Jews at the turn of the last century hailing from the alter heim looking for the goldene medina.  My grandpa got drunk on soda pop.

Perhaps Grandpa Archie didn't find gold in the monetary sense, but he definitely found it in his sense of pride in his family and upbringing.  He loved telling stories about Cape Breton, and I think he always longed to live out his years there.  He had what sounds like a lovely childhood and attended Dalhousie University in "the big city" Halifax, and for reasons unclear to me dropped out very close to the completion of his degree to return to Cape Breton and work in his family's general store.

If you look very carefully, you can see my reflection in this photo, a framed receipt from the store that hangs in our home.  Thanks, Mom, for this great family artifact.

So proud of his Nova Scotian upbringing was Grandpa Archie that he continued to have mid-afternoon tea with milk and kippered snacks, always with his yarmulke perched atop his head.  Never mind the crumbs he left behind:  his mother, Rochel Malke, for whom I am named and was known to be a true aishet chayil (a kind, sweet woman), likely cleaned up behind him and never gave him a problem.  I imagine I could learn a lesson or two from her in dealing, with an angelic touch, with the frustrations created by gender difference conflict.  Men can be slobs, disorganized and absent-minded...no biggie!

My brother, Uncle Goalie.  That hat would be a total Ebay score today!

My mother has a book entitled Cape Breton Memories in Verse which I believe my grandfather's brother Sol gave to him, as my mother said he probably knew how much his brother would have loved it once he moved away from Nova Scotia when his youngest daughter was a 2 year old to Syracuse, New York.  I managed to get a copy of this small pamphlet from our academic interlibrary loan system. I have been wanting for years to share this poem and now I finally have a forum.

Where Are you From?

by Winnifred Mitchell Protheroe

I have never met a person yet

Who did not ask of me,

"Where are you from?" then stare,

With careful scrutiny.

I have always thought it odd, that they

Such time, and pains should take

To ferret out the very spot!

What difference does it make?

When first you cross the border

You are a diplomat.

You say, "Oh, I'm from Canada."

And let it go at that.

But here, in our own country

The province folks must know;

And you feel that you must change your style

As further on you go.

For instance, in New Brunswick,

You may answer with a smile;

"My home," you say with  heartfelt pride,

"Is dear old Cape Breton Isle."

Then, when you reach Ontario,

More carefully you choose;

It's "I'm from Nova Scotia" then

As you would not dare to confuse

Worst of all are the cities

Out on the great Pacific;

Where you feel compelled to hum and haw

'Cause you can't be too specific.

The inevitable question comes,

And, like a cowering beast,

You get it over quickly with,

"Me?...I'm from the East."

You want to tell folks where you are from,

But you think that they might frown

As soon as they hear that you were born

In a smoky, mining town.

So, you fidget and fumble and shrink away

And your brain begins to snap.

You wish that you could do something great

To put your old town on the map.

Oh but it's good to be home again.

Where people do not scorn;

Where folks don't make a secret of

The place where they were born.

When someone asks the question now,

I can look him in the eye

And proudly say "I'm from the Bay.

Where are you from, B'y?'

Now I can return the book to the library tomorrow!


n.b.:  Yes, I transcribed that entire poem, complete with its colloquial punctuation, all on my own.  Giving myself a nice ole' pat-on-the-back.

Haim = Life or Home?

This morning we learned of the tragic death of Corey Haim, the child actor who reached fame and glory in the '80s.  We will forever love Lucas.  As Jews, we wish his family great comfort among the mourners of Zion.

Corey Haim during the '80s

Jewlicious has presumed that his last name meant "life."

While the Hebrew word chayim translates as life (as in L'chayim), it is also possible that Haim could have been from the Yiddish word, heim, which means home (as in heimish - - homey, cozy - -  or alter heim, referring to the old country/home).

Perhaps Haim was shortened from Haimovitch, meaning the "son of a Hayim".  This discussion talks about a Haimovitch family who emigrated from Romania to Montreal and since changed their name to Haines.  Perhaps the Haines and Haim family are related, since Corey was raised in Canada.  Unless Bernie Haim, Corey's father, wants to chime in here, we'll likely be in the dark.

For now, we're motivated to finally watch Lost Boys, which we somehow missed in 1987.