Who's the cutest of them all?

Entertainment news headlines today have announced the death of '50s television and sometimes film star David Nelson. He and his parents and his brother Ricky formed the iconic Nelson family, who modeled the ideals to which all American families were expected to aspire. As I recall, the byword in my family went something like this: "Ozzie and Harriet we aren't." That was one of my earliest experiences with understatement.
David Nelson was 74, the news articles say, and he passed after a bout with cancer. Despite the facts, I cannot picture him as an elderly man ravaged by illness. I, like many women who grew up in the '50s, remember his engaging grin, his spats with Ricky and his fading in the shadows of Ricky's fame as a recording artist. Even though I knew all the lyrics well enough to sing along with "Travelin' Man" and "Poor Little Fool", mourned over "Lonesome Town" and danced with my friends to "Hello, Mary Lou," I never thought Ricky Nelson was such a hot teen idol. His voice was nasal and wispy, and he tried too hard to imitate Elvis. The truth of the matter is that I was in love with David. Sweeter, shyer, often the fall guy, David captured my heart.
In the '50s, the type of guy you dreamed of marrying some day defined you in many ways.
Spin or Marty?
Pat Boone or Elvis?
James Dean or Tab Hunter?
Good kid or rebel? White bucks or blue suede shoes? Crew cut or greaser?
David Nelson was clean-cut, the kind of boy your father would let you date, except if you had a father like mine. He did not have the word "date" in his vocabulary, and he would have preferred that I remain his little girl in taffeta dresses, petticoats, lacy white anklets and black patent leather shoes forever. I always hoped, though, that he would allow David to come calling, should the occasion arise.
RIP.

Seeing blue

My blue plates have found their home once again.
They have moved from domicile to domicile, each relocation requiring me to find a suitable wall large enough to display them without looking garish or pretentious. They even accompanied me to Hawaii, where they remained in packing boxes because I had not researched the housing market well enough before I moved. Even though I did eventually find a minuscule apartment I could afford, the cement block walls did not lend themselves to hanging plates. With that exception, I have displayed them -- regardless of nuisance, regardless of the necessity for precise measuring, regardless of having to envision and re-envision a pattern that works -- no matter where I have gone. I have hung them so many times that I have memorized the dimensions. Each plate hanger must go 10 inches from another.
These are not just any blue plates. These are Royal Copenhagen Christmas plates. The Danish company has a remarkable history dating from the mid-1700s. It prides itself on superior craftsmanship in its trademark blue and white porcelain. The Christmas plates gain their value as collector's items based on a variety of factors, but their value to me is primarily sentimental.
My mother began gifting me with a plate each year, starting in 1962, for 25 years. I'm guessing the starting date must have had something to do with the first Christmas after I graduated from high school. Apparently she thought this rite of passage marked a new level a maturity, probably her wish more than a reality. Nonetheless, I have guarded them carefully through the decades. I have lived, at least with regard to the plates, up to her expectations.
This may account for her oft-repeated question during the process of my most recent move.
"Have you hung the plates yet?" she would ask each time I spoke to her on the phone.
"Not yet," I would reply, somewhat dreading the prospect while at the same time appreciating tradition.
I called her the moment I finished.  I've made her proud.