Hollyhock Dolls

Them Hollyhocks just shot right up this summer the way they have been doing for the past who the hecks knows how long.   I have been growing Hollyhocks in the backyard ever since I can remember.  It started out years ago much to the advantage of the dainty women folk in our area.

When I was a young girl and certain people still employed outhouses in the Wyoming Valley of Northeast PA, the custom was to plant the hollyhocks on all four sides of the outhouse.  

Now look at how the years have flown, and every summer, like clockwork, I tend to my hollyhocks, some of which have actually survived the wintertimes, and believe it or not, bloomed in winter!  Back in in the winter of so and so Walter and I were convinced Satanic forces were at work, his warm fires keeping the grounds warm enough in the bitter winter to produce a single ten foot strand of Hollyhock in mid February!  Oh What silly boobies we had become, thinking that the devil had anything to do with that plant.  Sure enough, we had Monsignor B  over to hack it down, and sprinkle the area, just to be sure.

When I was a little girl my grandmother and I made hollyhock dolls all of the time, and this is going back to oh my goshes the 1920's. Take two hollyhock blooms. One that is open and one that is just the bud.    Take the full bloom and attach it to the bud for the doll's hat.  Use  a 1/2 toothpick inserted through the ends with the green parts of the flower together) Then two toothpicks in the open bud for the legs. At the top of the open bud we stuck in 1/2 toothpicks for arms.

Mortified to learn that Liberace was gay.

I feel swindled to learn that the whole time Liberace was enticing us with his virtuoso every week on tv, that the entire time I was going mad for him, he only had the secret longing in his heart for men!  What a silly old fool I am.    I guess I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back,  Liberace had once occupied a tiny space in my heart.  Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't ever cheat on my late hubby in any thought word or deed, and Walter was an absolute angel to tolerate some of my whims.  But I mostly took to daydreaming about the gentle and friendly Liberace when hanging clothes on the line or folding laundry or breastfeeding my first born Betko.  Walter Jr. did not get any mother's milk from me.  For reasons unknown, I was dry as Henry's Colliery by the time he came along, and any time he tried to latch on, I had to swat him away.    Now that I think about it, the Liberace dreams were never sexual in nature.  Rather, my fantasies only involved me sipping a cool drink with a straw while relaxing on the divan as he would play soft tinkling melodies for me.  Liberace always knew what song I needed and he knew when I needed his singing the most.  For many years in my womanhood, I was unhappy, prone to crying and hysteria.  When the doctors couldn't figure it out, when they tried to have me placed in a long-term "care facility" for "evaluations," I dug my heels in deep to my religion and decided to forego treatment for mentality illnesses and instead trust in the Lord, lest people in the community talk badly about me as a person deep down inside.

When I fantasized about Liberace, it didn't ever conjure the same things in my loins that my Walter provided.  Then again if I wanted to be truthful here, I should admit to perhaps a few occasions when Walter was bearing into me, that I stopped pretending I was enjoying myself and tried to imagine it was Liberace instead.  Normally though, this Liberace fantasy never went to a sexual realm.  But whenever I hear that song about I'll be looking at the moon but I'll be seeing you, I do feel haunted.