In my youth, my family moved to the countryside near a city (population 8,000). Mom and a neighbor lady, who lived across our dirt road, were really cozy, having morning coffee break at the kitchen table around ten each weekday. The neighbor pumped my mom, a farm girl from Arkansas, full of big notions of Missouri high society.
In those days, Mom was given S&H green stamps with grocery purchases. My sister, three brothers, and I licked those foul-tasting stamps and pasted them in the saver books. It took 50-ones to fill a page or 5-tens or if you were really lucky, a single stamp displaying a big red fifty.
Mom and the neighbor cooked up a scheme where they’d pool their stamps and get a silver service. That included a silver coffee pot, teapot, and a sugar bowl and creamer. The whole shooting match rested on a large silver tray.
With a redemption center in a metropolis twenty-five miles away, they planned the trip to claim the prize instead of ordering it from the Ideabook put out by Sperry and Hutchison. I believe the neighbor got to store the silver service, but they took turns setting a beautiful table for festive occasions like baby showers, wedding showers, and various holiday events. Their morning coffee break was still fueled by the percolator without the fancy trappings.
Over time, they saved more stamps and traded them for a second silver service. Now Mom had her own, and she was willing to let me borrow it years later when I moved to a nearby town and joined a couple study clubs. In time, I became the only one to ever use it, so she told me it was mine.
Although I painstakingly polished the silver service for each time the clubs met at my house, there was an inch-long brown place on the coffee pot handle where nothing I tried would make it shine.
At the study clubs, I was led to believe that pouring at refreshment time was a privileged job for the hostess, but I didn’t take to it. I tended to spill, so after the first time, I delegated that position. One time I noticed the woman who was pouring coffee running her finger over that brown area.
“That’s a permanent color,” I said.
“Oh, I thought it just needed polishing,” she said.
I was quick to defend my housekeeping skills. “No, I think it may not have been top quality.” I explained about Mom saving the green stamps, and then I bit my tongue for putting on airs. “It is my honor to own this silver service. It’s a prized possession.”
These days, without many formal occasions in my casual life, I don’t use that silver service much, and I am willing to share my good fortune of owning this treasure. If you have need of a well-polished silver service, you’re welcome to borrow my storied set. There’s a beauty mark on the coffee pot handle.
