When I retired from United Airlines as a flight attendant three years ago, I missed the camaraderie of other flight attendants, as well as the general atmosphere of the whole flying industry. So, I accepted an invitation to join a national organization for retired flight attendants called Clipped Wings. It was nice to rub shoulders with people who knew pretty much what that part of my life had been like. But I didn't know very many of the members, most of whom had started to fly long before my foray into that world the year I was 55. The difference between their seniority and my seniority was vast, which meant I didn't fly very often with my peers. I mostly flew with people much younger than I was, some even so much younger I could have been their mother!!
However, that membership in Clipped Wings put me in touch with a woman whom I had truly enjoyed having on my crew once in a while when I was flying. She had started a knitting group a few years ago and inquired if I would be interested in joining them. I told Susan that I wasn't into knitting...or crocheting, either...like some of the women in the group did. In fact, I told her, I had learned the basics of both those kinds of handwork when I was a girl, but I literally hadn't crocheted anything since I had been a sophomore in college and my roommate "forced" me to crochet a small rug, along with several girls in the dorm who were doing the same project. Though I finished the rug--and NEVER used it--I remembered that endeavor as kind of distressing to get through.
Susan assured me that she would still love to have me come--just to visit with her and the others in the group. She told me some of them didn't bring handwork either, so I wouldn't be the only one not working on some project.
The group meets in Parker every month at the local library. I wasn't keen on the distance between my home in Johnstown and the monthly get-togethers, but I was motivated enough to visit with other flight attendants and catch up on the news with United Airlines, so I agreed to go to the meetings.
All went well for some time. It was true. A few of the others only visited, too, but because some of the knitting group are still actively flying, those non-knitters were not always in attendance. I alone seemingly sat idle while the click of industry was loud all around me along with discussions of patterns, yarn shops, and displays of finished projects. I was definitely on the outer fringes of this "in crowd"!
Then one day about three months ago, Susan announced that it was time to start creating blankets to donate to Denver General Hospital as they had done regularly before the Pandemic. If each one of us brought only six small squares, that would be enough to assemble more blankets for the needy!
Susan mailed me a simple pattern and gave me a couple of half used skeins of yarn to get started. I didn't have a clue how to even read the directions! So, I began asking all of my friends if they crocheted. Not one of them did! However, Corky said her next-door neighbor Kathleen did. Was this the neighbor Corky had brought with her to my Nativity open house at Christmas? "Yes. I'll give you her number."
I was a little apprehensive about calling for help to a woman whom I had only seen before for a limited time. But I was determined to see if I could step up to this request. After all, it was only six, small squares that I had to produce.
I left Corky's neighbor Kathleen a message with my sad tale of being 78 years old and needing help to do some simple crocheting. Kathleen called me back shortly after that and graciously said she would be happy to help me out. Her neighbor had taught her to crochet when she was just a little girl, too. Only Kathleen liked it and stuck with it until now she was crocheting and knitting extremely complicated patterns for Afghans, scarves, sweaters, hats, etc. We made a date for her to come over to my house and re-teach me everything I had forgotten from lack of interest.
When Kathleen arrived on the appointed day, she brought along yarn, needles, a simple instruction book and a very patient and cheerful disposition! I showed her the directions Susan had given me, and we started in with a simple chain to begin the first square. My fingers? Stiff! Awkward! And fumbling errantly while I struggled to hold the crochet hook in one hand and the yarn in the other as Kathleen motivated me with a continuous string of encouraging words.
After two and a half hours, Kathleen left me with five completed rows out of the twelve needed for the blanket square. And with an invitation to call anytime I needed help, because she had run next door many times asking her neighbor to help her during her learning process.
It was with relief that I set the crocheting aside to fix supper that afternoon and forget about the project for a while. Unfortunately, it was several days before I took up needle and yarn in hand to begin again. Not surprisingly, I had pretty much forgotten exactly the correct procedure to continue crocheting where I had left off. The instructions were of no use to me. It was like reading a foreign language. I do better with ROTE learning. Show me and let me imitate the steps. I had better call Kathleen!
When I contacted Kathleen with my sad tale of woe, she laughed. "Of course! Come on over." So, I did, and she showed me how to begin anew. In the meantime, we exchanged life stories and the time sailed by. Her hands fairly flew with her project, and the next thing I knew, I had finished my first square! "Okay chain 25 again and get that following row started." But she had to help me do it.
This time however, when I was by myself and picked up the second square I was crocheting, I was able to start where I left off and go all the way through the 12th row--albeit with numerous times I had to pull out some stitches when I could see I had done something wrong.
The date for the next knitting group meeting had been moved up a week--and it was fast approaching! No way I was going to be able to do four more, even if I really WANTED to. Kathleen volunteered to crochet the remaining four of the half dozen and said she would bring them over to my house when she was done. Oh, happy day!
At the appointed time Kathleen delivered the four squares I needed, plus two more squares from a second skein of yarn...and an abbreviated little square that was just the right size to tuck into the box with the rubber dolly I was sending to my little great grand baby. How cute!
D-DAY! Delivery day to my meeting in Parker....
I didn't mind the drive so much this time as I have before. It was kind of exciting to think of the expressions on everyone's faces as I showed them my requisite "six small squares" for the blanket project. Susan had said she would put the squares together to make the blankets for donation. Didn't matter the color, patterns, etc. as long as they were all six inches each. I wondered how my six squares of pink and white would look assembled with other squares to make a blanket.
As I walked into the meeting room, I held up the completed six squares and announced, "TA DA!!!" Truthfully the whole group was pretty surprised while one of them braved the question, "YOU did all these?"
I held up MY contribution--"Nope! I just did these two. I had a wonderful surrogate named Kathleen who crocheted the other four squares AND these two squares to finish out the yarn. Will you be able to use them, too?"
Mary Beth asked, "Didn't you just love it once you got going on it?" Sadly, I had to confess that no, I did not. I enjoyed visiting with my surrogate/now friend while we were together. But it's just not my thing. I do better work with a pencil. But I told them that after a while what I had learned years ago came back to me, and I could hold the hook and the yarn more comfortably that way. And, yes, once I got going, and felt more confident, it didn't seem so taxing. But I could never see myself making a beautiful sweater with variegated yarn like Lisa was making, or a colorful scarf big enough to use as a lap blanket that Mary Kaye was knitting. Or even the complicated squares that Mary Beth was crocheting into a lacy shell pattern. And goodness NO! not the detailed projects Susan was working on!
As the morning slipped by, I sat there visiting with the rest as I heard recaps of recent United incidents in the news, updates about husbands' health, escapades of grown children who were having challenges of their own, and anecdotes of other flight attendants while sipping hot chocolate and nibbling on sweet German treats Susan had brought from her Frankfort trip. But I was empty-handed as far as a project.
I had gently declined more yarn to make another square while we were all together. That was too scary! How would I even begin to start that same chain and then turn it so I could double crochet into each stitch to make the second row, then a third row and beyond without my friend Kathleen there by my side with her watchful eye and enthusiastic encouragement? Not possible! It was too embarrassing to confess I STILL needed help.
Just before we finished the three-hour get-together, Susan reminded everyone to keep on making those squares! That's when Marcie leaned over and whispered to me that when they first started to meet, it WAS just visiting. Then Susan felt like they needed to be more productive and suggested the blanket project. "There is a lot of need in the world, and six small squares each could make a difference for a lot of people," she had told them.
"Only" visiting might not have been productive for them, but I attend a lot of meetings and do a lot of stuff for other people. So, I was grateful to have a regular block of time to look forward to that I could just sit and visit and not have to be productive. I guess it's all in perspective. Perhaps this isn't the group for me after all, because I didn't feel a bit guilty just sitting there while the others' hands worked as quickly as their mouths.
When it was time to leave for the now loooong drive home, one from the group called out, "Maybe your friend could keep making squares for the crocheted blankets going to the hospital?"
