HOLLYHOCKS

I remember hollyhocks. Do you have something that the minute you see it memories come flooding back? Hollyhocks are that for me. It takes me right back to the time I was about nine years old and we lived on West Washington Street by the West Branch School. There was a small back porch that had lattice surrounding the bottom of it. Mom planted hollyhocks all across the front of the lattice. I think it was mom who showed us how to make the flowers into dresses and we pretended they were princesses going to a ball. Mom never sat and taught us things that I can remember, but I do remember how she played and played with us down on her knees and showed us how to use her imagination. When she was small they were very poor and she told me how she and her sister, Marcelle, would love to get the old Sears and Robuck catalog when the new one came and cut out all the people and clothes and play paper dolls. I remember her playing paper dolls with me. There were hours spent underneath the porch in the sand playing with those hollyhock dolls with Diane.