Button, Button

     I needed buttons for a sewing project.  Instead of going to the store, I went to the button jar. That's where I put the extra buttons that come with new clothes.  It's also the place where I collect buttons cut off of old clothes.  Here's a portion of something I did for my creative writing class -

     My grandmother's button box was an endless source of entertainment for my sister and me.  Grandmom would lay newspapers on her kitchen table before dumping the old cookie tin that held decades' worth of salvaged buttons.  Then, with wide, sweeping arm motions, we spread the buttons.  Dramatic gestures seemed appropriate.
     When we were very young, we counted buttons or sorted them by color or size.  As we got older, and our girlie self images developed, we draped ourselves in strands of same colored buttons my grandmother had strung together.  We imagined that we wore pearl necklaces and ruby bracelets.  We piled up the gold and silver buttons, lifting hands full of them, letting them fall through our fingers.  We were pirates digging into a treasure chest of coins.  The buttons with rhinestone centers were fabulous jewels.  The old, rough looking ones made out of oyster shell became wampum.  I was an Indian princess, and my father, the chief, was negotiating with a handsome explorer who wanted my hand in marriage.
     My favorite buttons, the ones I sought out and turned over in my hands each time we brought out the button box, were the ones taken from the army uniforms.  My grandfather had served in World War I.  The buttons were all that remained of his uniform.  My bachelor uncle, who lived with my grandparents, and often supervised our button adventures, contributed his World War II uniform buttons to the collection.  My grandmother showed us my uncle's military portrait, and we compared the loose buttons to the ones in the picture.
     Another source of button entertainment came from my grandfather.  He made a simple toy using a length of string and the biggest button he could find.  He put the string through the two button holes, tied it, and looped it around his middle fingers.  With a little twirling to get things started, he got the button zinging along the string as he moved his hands close together and pulled them apart.  A button on a string beat pulling the strings of all the Chatty Cathy's in the world, at least until my sister and I got home and saw some Mattel commercials on the television ...

    If you want to confuse the grandkids this Christmas, put a big button in their stocking.  Then, teach then to make a toy with a button and string.  Or get everybody together and play a game of Button, Button, Who's Got the Button.  In case you need a few pointers, here's how to accomplish these two tasks:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Dancing-Button
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button,_Who's_Got_the_Button%3F