Ladies came to a sewing group to admire fun new hair styles, fantastic dresses, and a handmade antimacassar. The picture is called, Calapander’s Antimacassar. The first word, Calapander, is an invented name and the second word, antimacassar, is a cloth. It’s often times fancy and set on furniture to keep hair oil from damaging it. Years ago Macassar Oil was very popularly used on hair especially by men. In my sewing group we show off all types of hand made items and our new grand baby pictures.

My husband, John, and our neighbor were very close having both served as warriors at the same time and place. One day my neighbor called John insisting he rush right over. Fairly soon John returned home very puzzled. My neighbor’s new grand baby, just a few days old, had come to visit for the first time and John was called over to inspect and hold and love the child!

After a moment I understood. I remembered the first time my son entered Cub Scouts. The leader greeted us all then called my son to the front and almost immediately called up the rest of the Cub Scout pack. My son up front and I in my seat were shocked! A pack of boys completely surrounded my son SNIFFING him! After many sniffs from each boy the pack approved of my son and were asked to sit back down. The leader explained Rudyard Kipling wrote about wolves sniffing every new member as a way of accepting them into the FAMILY.

John was so important to my neighbor a similar ceremony was called for and it occurs to me showing off new baby pictures is exactly the same thing.

Calapander’s Antiimacasser