The Chimney Cupboard: Why is "The Old Dark Blue" the "Old Dark Blue" in Old New England - Part Four

Why is "The Old Dark Blue

The "Old Dark Blue"

In Old New England

Part Four

"Enhance The"

Holding on to my broken ‘The Old Dark Blue’ sugar bowl... tightly with my free hand, I explore two expostulations that

Enhance the

“Why?” is The Old Dark Blue ... The Old Dark Blue... in Old New England.

These two do not ‘make’ the... ODB the... ODB in the O... N... E. No. The expostulations just

Enhance the

Old Dark Blue

In Old New England. The expostulations are:

“HOW?” is the sugar bowl “MADE” “in England”... and

“HOW?” was it actually used... in the old New England home.

“HOW?”; two those.

The first is the making of and the finished of... it (the ODB sugar bowl) before it gets on the boat and sails (“sailing ships”) to (old) New England (Part Three). Yes I can go on for quite a... saga-of-the-making... of the ODB but

I am not going to. No... you may yourself... study this... and it is an easy to find out.

I... want only one aspect for my... enhance the... of the Old Dark Blue. That aspect is ‘manpower’. Human power actually... for.. it was a very male AND female AND children process. A lot of hands on... at all production points. Yes...:

Eleven or twelve humans... working as fast as a possible... with little ‘letting up’... ever.... always... “MAKING”... The Old Dark Blue. No, no, no.... I just said “ELEVEN or TWELVE”... humans... for making EACH... broken sugar bowl.

What does that mean? MOST prominent is the defining that this ‘enhance the’ is a... that-this... human process CANNOT be duplicated today for ...

NO ONE

HAS ELEVEN HUMANS

Make one sugar bowl

“Anymore”

It.... cannot be done. Anymore. No...: It cannot be done... anywhere... ever... including “Made in China”. OH THEY MAY endeavor to emulate but they cannot not

Duplicate

The full manufacture process of

A single ‘piece’ (here being an old broken sugar bowl)... of The Old Dark Blue.

No ‘fakes’. No quality reproductions. No ‘new stuff that is as good as the

Old stuff. No. Is not. It cannot happen. It cannot be done. What ...we... have then is...

What there is... actually is... including the ...now getting more sensitive to this are

You?... the

What’s left is what may be (all) found. The moral is that the ‘broken’ is NOT getting fixed, made over, improved or even... ah.... ‘found again’. No... the making process assures that the “it” ...

Is it.

So if one finds one broken The Old Dark Blue sugar bowl in the contents of an old New England home...

THAT IS IT. Because the manufacture process assures the “THIS”. The door back is shut.

Did a “they” know this? Did they...? Intuitively they deducted this. That is why the broken sugar bowl is “STILL IN THE HOUSE”. “YOU DON’T THROW IT OUT”. That is why I find them. They were not ‘thrown out’. “WE”... “don’t have anything else like this”... TO THIS DAY. In my (antiquarian) realm... people know this and, in old New England... have ALWAYS known this...: The Old Dark Blue.

One little assist point... within the ‘making’: The old dark blue... pictures... titled ‘transfers’... that decorate these old sugars, et al, were applied by a room full of women snipping them from transfer sheets with scissors while chattering ceaselessly. The transfers were snipped and fitted on the hollowware blanks by nimble fingers ‘applying’. It was... All... All... ALL hand done for decades. My assist point is to notice this when appreciating the old broken sugar bowl. The main ‘big side’ transfer is usually concise and clear... but... if one hunts around the sides by the handles one often finds that area covered with table scrap clippings of transfers hastily applied to ‘cover’ that difficult area. These ...and this table scrap decoration work... charm... in addition to showing off very well the intensive handmade totality of the whole The Old Dark Blue manufacture process. It is a small charm... but it delights my eye to hunt for it: The room of women with nimble fingers... chattering away... for decades. Then that vanished to be today...

‘Never again’.

The actual usage (“the service”)... of The Old Dark Blue... (broken) sugar bowl... in the... Old New England Home:

Yes: “Service”. In Part Three we traveled the sugar bowl by crafty peddler to the Old New England Home by the peddler’s deduction that these sugar bowls were a ‘do not have one’ and ‘I like’ dazzling deep blue china object that could be sold to a New England home for they ...do not have one (any china).... and “WANT THAT”. Once handed from peddler to homemaker... after a ‘deal was struck’ The

Old Dark Blue sugar bowl went, immediately into ‘service’. The wooden tub ...or pewter bowl that held the home’s brown sugar was ... replaced by the dark blue “china” ‘sugar’ ‘bowl’. Perfect. With lid.

This ‘it’ served.

And served.

Resulting in, eventually... the preserved old broken veteran I find today. HOW did it get from day one to day... me? And be that way; preserved and broken. AND WHY.

Brown sugar on the dinner table within a dark blue china sugar bowl ...stood out like the sore thumb in the old New England home. EVERYONE liked it and used it (the sugar and the sugar bowl) and... acknowledged that “IT” was “IT”; the household ‘sugar’ ‘in service’. Everyday... all day long... everyone... ‘used it’. No wonder it... ah... “got broken”. Right?

“But they were so CAREFULL with it”. Right. But they were so... “USE IT” too:

They did. And what was the goblin of this usage? It was... that... brown sugar ‘hardens’ ‘in the bowl’ so... sugar service procurement was... ah... a ‘getting it out’... by chipping with a spoon... by Mr. Sugar Loving Lunch Time In From The Field Farmer and his thick callused hands and strongest grip and chip, chip, chip... every day... for decades including dropping the lid and the... homemaker’s despair at the handling roughness and the... resulting wear and tear. This is easy to deduct once it is pointed out. And again... over decades including the discovery that putting bowl bottom in the oven ‘for a minute’ softens the sugar... yet ‘browns’ the sugar bowl bottom. Too.

No wonder the inner lid rest rim... is chipped. No wonder the lid, if found, is ‘broken’, ‘finial gone’, ‘rim chipped’ and ‘glued back together’.

No wonder... the hairline cracks wander all over from the spoon jabbing into the bowl with ‘all his strength’. No wonder... and this is a charmer...: NO WONDER that when one carefully reviews the holes punched in these old sugar bowls one discovers

Conclusively

That these ‘each hole’ was made not from punching IN the sugar bowl but from these holes being punched OUT from the inside of the sugar bowl by, again, the ‘all his strength’ punching the bottom’s... sides... corners and crevasses... OUT to get the sugar OUT. Yes... all of the ‘broken’ is caused by punching “OUT”. That is why the broken happened and WHY the bowl was kept in service; that was... the way... it was... and... “WAS USED”. Until, eventually (after the Civil War) the household, by passage of generation, “got a new one” by a ‘the younger set’ who now... ‘replaced’ “grandmother’s sugar bowl.