Two Hands to Help Fight Breast Cancer

I finally finished up and sent my contribution to Jeanette Shanigan's 2011 Bead Quilt project.



I'm not much for getting out and doing the long walks and other breast cancer fundraisers, but Jeanette's bead quilt project gave me a reason to get out my bead loom and create something for a good cause. This year's theme is “Caring hands beading together to help find a cure for breast cancer,” and Jeanette has been doing the "Bead It Forward" project since 2006, making bead quilts and auctioning them off with the proceeds going to breast cancer research.

The beaded portion of my quilt squares each measure 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 inches, and the design is all mine, based on Jeanette's 2011 theme. I got back into doing beading not quite 2 years ago after more than 10 years away, and after nearly 25 years away from doing any bead loom work. As much as I love doing my bead work, it is even more enjoyable to have a reason for making something. I'm looking forward to seeing how much Jeanette's quilts make this year, and to participating again next year.

Ainsley M. "Dix" Dixon 1931 - 2011

If’n

“If’n my frog If’n hadn’t stopped to croak, he would have caught that fly.” This (or some variation thereof) was one of my Dad’s favorite quotes, usually told to one of us when we started in with an “If I had done ….” of our own. This was Dad’s way of reminding us that the past was just that – in the past. His view was that you should live in the Now and look forward to the Future -- those were the things you could change. And this was Dad’s view of life -- I don’t ever remember hearing him talk about things he should have done differently. You pick your path, make your choices, and you live with the consequences.

Stories

Dad may have been in the Navy for only 4 years, but he had a lifetime’s worth of stories to tell. We all heard (more than once) about his ruptured appendix and having it removed while he was stationed on Guam. Or, how about the time that the tree crab nearly met its end -- Dad was on sentry duty, and the crab would not halt and identify itself.

And then, there were the stories about living on Cape Cod and roaming the cemeteries at night. Or, while living in Macon, GA, working in the loft/attic of the peach packing plant and dropping peach fuzz on everyone below. And then there was the time he and a few of the other teenage boys in Macon went out frog hunting and brought the frogs back to his sister, Ruth, to fix frog legs in the middle of the night.

Memories

And the memories keep running through my mind -- too many to ever list fully. But some include:

• Dad carrying a 95-lb piece of petrified wood at least a quarter mile from where Mom found it to where the car was located.
  
• When he found our Beagle, Tony, gnawing on a huge carrot from the neighbor’s garden.
  
• When he brought home what had to be truly the world’s ugliest dog -- its skin was saggy/baggy like an elephant’s skin, and it had no hair. (No, we didn’t keep it.)
  
• All the ladies on the cruise ship (we did an Alaska cruise for Mom and Dad’s 50th anniversary) had to come watch him play the coin pusher machine in the casino. They just loved his silver hair.
  
• When we would go antiquing, he would point to an open salt and ask me if I had it. When I started answering “Yes” most of the time, he just started pointing to larger and larger dishes, proclaiming them (with a twinkle in his eye) to be the largest salt dish he had ever seen and he was sure I needed it for my collection.
  
• Playing games on Saturday nights: Hand and Foot, Mexican Train, or Yahtzee were our favorites.
  
• Seeing the joy in his eyes with his grandsons and later with his great-grandkids.