doilies & a blue striped jug

An era, a lifestyle, a nationality can be marked by the most mundane items and yet these pieces of junk encapsulate every element of the very thing they signify.


To promise you I'm not leading you up the garden path, think of a doily. What does it make you think of? Maybe it's different for everyone but for me a doily sums up everything about a nineteen-fifties home and the subsequent baby-boomer generation. A lacy-lovely to pretty up inconsequential collectables on timber veneer side tables or glass-doored china cabinets.


I had the pleasure of watching a short film, 'Tulip' last week in one of my tutorials. Directed by Rachel Griffiths, it is a beautiful insight into an elderly man's loss of his much-loved spouse and the despair that follows. The heartache of the forlorn husband, played by Bud Tingwell, was moving - but the scenes that captured me were due the simplest of things.

image source [here]

The milk the two drank at breakfast was served in a blue and white striped jug - just as above. My grandma had one of the very same jugs, she passed away over a year ago. My grandparents are from a small rural town and after my grandma's funeral, morning tea featured tables, elaborately-spread with homemade goodies set atop paper doilies and disposable plates - the same kind of spread I saw on this short film. I almost shed a tear - glad I didn't because it was the middle of a class.


The blue and white stripe jug and the doily are some of the most evocative images of this generation and way of life - it gives me the warm fuzzies on the inside and makes me smile on the outside. 


I fear we are losing this sense of community, the kind of community that brings something homemade to share as opposed to a packet of Doritos. Perhaps the fact that I am living in suburbia doesn't help.
What will this generation be marked by? Ikea furniture, square basket storage or cheap, tip-filling, easy to replace appliances?


I leave you with this image from a little town near where my mother grew up. I think the occasion may have been a Lion's Club lunch.

Sums it all up, doesn't it?


If you can get your hands on it, watch 'Tulip'. Your local library might have it.


Embrace the doily and do your bit to keep the community spirit living - make a jelly-slice!


e.