My Blankee
Title
My Blankee
Creator
Jacob Schlitt
Description
"I don't want the title of this piece to give the wrong impression."
Date
2012-07-18
Format
application/pdf
Type
text
Language
en
Coverage
1925/1975
Identifier
MY_BLANKEE
Text
MY BLANKEE
I don’t want the title of this piece to give the wrong impression. I never walked around with a blanket remnant like Linus in “Peanuts,” or had to clutch some shmatta in order to go to bed. My blankee was a brown houndstooth wool blanket which was on my bed as far back as I can remember. It was different from most blankets because my mother had cut an indentation into the center top of the blanket, about two feet across and one foot deep. She then finished the edges, where she had removed the material, with a very intricate stitch.
That brown woolen blanket was “my blankee.” I snuggled under it in the winter, and really became attached to it. When I was a teenager (and still sleeping with “my blankee”), I asked my mother if there was a story that goes with the blanket. She was delighted, because I seldom asked her to tell me about anything. My mother then described the brief period in her life when she was a lady of leisure. It was the mid-1920s, before I was born. My mother no longer “worked in the shop as a finisher by cloaks.” She took English classes at night school; she went to the Yiddish theatre; and she discovered auction houses. Many of the pieces of furniture and the art work that was in our apartment, was bought by my mother “at auction.”
I was pleased to learn about that time, but what has that got to do with the blanket? My mother then explained that, from time to time, auctioneers would offer for sale boxes of merchandise in which the contents were unknown. My mother occasionally bid on, and bought, such boxes. In one of those boxes, which she bought, there was, among other items, the blanket. It had a name imprinted on it. Just as I, today, do not wear clothing with brand names, my mother did not want to provide free advertising, so she cut it out. I had originally thought that she created the indentation as a way of bringing the blanket up to your chin and still having your shoulders covered.
Time passes. My mother is gone. I get rid of a lot of old stuff, including my blankee. I marry, have children, change jobs, move to Washington, and find a position with the US Civil Rights Commission. One of the fringe benefits of that job, is attending conferences that take place in different parts of the country. It is the mid-70s, and I am participating in a conference in Tucson, Arizona. At the conclusion of the conference, I take annual leave (vacation) and arrange to get together with my friend Sol who lives in Phoenix.
Sol and I had been in touch during the previous months, planning the trip that we would take at the conclusion of the conference. The plan called for him to drive down from Phoenix to Tucson when the conference ended. We would then drive to Nogales, Arizona, park the car, and cross over to Nogales Mexico. Sol had bought two round-trip tickets on the Mexican railroad train that goes overnight from Nogales to the seaside resort city of Mazatlan. He had reserved a “roomette” on the train, and a hotel room in Mazatlan. Everything went as planned.
This was my first time in a sleeper where your compartment is converted into a bedroom. We have seen such trains dozens of times in the movies, but here it was in real life. Sol and I relaxed in our compartment, strolled through the train, had “dinner in the diner,” and when we returned to our compartment, the beds had been made.
As I entered our compartment, I was struck dumb. There, on the beds was MY BLANKEE! I was almost in a state of shock.. I gasped; I shook my head in disbelief; I ripped the blanket off the bed to get a better look at it. It really was my blankee! It was wool, brown, and had a houndstooth pattern. The same size and the same weight. And at the top of the blanket was imprinted “Pullman.” Sol could not understand why I was so excited. I felt that no matter what else happened on the trip, it was worth it just for this discovery.
I tried to put the pieces together, and this is what I concluded: The Pullman Sleeping Car Company in the U.S. experienced a declining demand for its services during the decades of the forties, fifties and sixties. It must have then sold the legendary Pullman sleeping cars in which we were riding to the Mexican railroad. The cars included the bedding. Pullman must have bought its blankets from the same manufacturer, and kept the same pattern on its blankets forever. Somehow, a Pullman blanket ended up in a mystery box that my mother bought. And 50 years later, the same blanket was being used on a Mexican sleeper. For two nights, going and coming, I slept again under my old “blankee.”
7-18-12
I don’t want the title of this piece to give the wrong impression. I never walked around with a blanket remnant like Linus in “Peanuts,” or had to clutch some shmatta in order to go to bed. My blankee was a brown houndstooth wool blanket which was on my bed as far back as I can remember. It was different from most blankets because my mother had cut an indentation into the center top of the blanket, about two feet across and one foot deep. She then finished the edges, where she had removed the material, with a very intricate stitch.
That brown woolen blanket was “my blankee.” I snuggled under it in the winter, and really became attached to it. When I was a teenager (and still sleeping with “my blankee”), I asked my mother if there was a story that goes with the blanket. She was delighted, because I seldom asked her to tell me about anything. My mother then described the brief period in her life when she was a lady of leisure. It was the mid-1920s, before I was born. My mother no longer “worked in the shop as a finisher by cloaks.” She took English classes at night school; she went to the Yiddish theatre; and she discovered auction houses. Many of the pieces of furniture and the art work that was in our apartment, was bought by my mother “at auction.”
I was pleased to learn about that time, but what has that got to do with the blanket? My mother then explained that, from time to time, auctioneers would offer for sale boxes of merchandise in which the contents were unknown. My mother occasionally bid on, and bought, such boxes. In one of those boxes, which she bought, there was, among other items, the blanket. It had a name imprinted on it. Just as I, today, do not wear clothing with brand names, my mother did not want to provide free advertising, so she cut it out. I had originally thought that she created the indentation as a way of bringing the blanket up to your chin and still having your shoulders covered.
Time passes. My mother is gone. I get rid of a lot of old stuff, including my blankee. I marry, have children, change jobs, move to Washington, and find a position with the US Civil Rights Commission. One of the fringe benefits of that job, is attending conferences that take place in different parts of the country. It is the mid-70s, and I am participating in a conference in Tucson, Arizona. At the conclusion of the conference, I take annual leave (vacation) and arrange to get together with my friend Sol who lives in Phoenix.
Sol and I had been in touch during the previous months, planning the trip that we would take at the conclusion of the conference. The plan called for him to drive down from Phoenix to Tucson when the conference ended. We would then drive to Nogales, Arizona, park the car, and cross over to Nogales Mexico. Sol had bought two round-trip tickets on the Mexican railroad train that goes overnight from Nogales to the seaside resort city of Mazatlan. He had reserved a “roomette” on the train, and a hotel room in Mazatlan. Everything went as planned.
This was my first time in a sleeper where your compartment is converted into a bedroom. We have seen such trains dozens of times in the movies, but here it was in real life. Sol and I relaxed in our compartment, strolled through the train, had “dinner in the diner,” and when we returned to our compartment, the beds had been made.
As I entered our compartment, I was struck dumb. There, on the beds was MY BLANKEE! I was almost in a state of shock.. I gasped; I shook my head in disbelief; I ripped the blanket off the bed to get a better look at it. It really was my blankee! It was wool, brown, and had a houndstooth pattern. The same size and the same weight. And at the top of the blanket was imprinted “Pullman.” Sol could not understand why I was so excited. I felt that no matter what else happened on the trip, it was worth it just for this discovery.
I tried to put the pieces together, and this is what I concluded: The Pullman Sleeping Car Company in the U.S. experienced a declining demand for its services during the decades of the forties, fifties and sixties. It must have then sold the legendary Pullman sleeping cars in which we were riding to the Mexican railroad. The cars included the bedding. Pullman must have bought its blankets from the same manufacturer, and kept the same pattern on its blankets forever. Somehow, a Pullman blanket ended up in a mystery box that my mother bought. And 50 years later, the same blanket was being used on a Mexican sleeper. For two nights, going and coming, I slept again under my old “blankee.”
7-18-12
Original Format
application/msword
Collection
Citation
Jacob Schlitt, “My Blankee,” Autobiographical stories & other writing by Jacob Schlitt, accessed April 20, 2024, https://tsirlson.omeka.net/items/show/185.