By Anita Garner
When this year’s Vermont Country Store Christmas catalog arrived, I saw this page and thought of Itsie.
Italo Luigi Orlandi lived one canyon over from me in Mill Valley, California in a huge house on a hill. In his 80s he was still sprinting up four flights of stairs from the steep driveway in the redwoods to his kitchen door.
Itsie loved oilcloth and always had one covering his old kitchen table. He sat with a visitor sharing instant coffee from chipped cups (“No need for a fancy coffee maker. It’s just me here. I know how to boil water.”) One of his hands was always in motion soothing the tablecloth while he talked. The oilcloth was frayed, nearly bare in places. It had already been turned and turned again so there were no more fresh surfaces to see.
He’d recently given up driving his big blue van around town, quit driving voluntarily, said it was the responsible thing to do since his vision wasn’t what it should be. I drove him places and had the pleasure of his company and his stories from decades spent buying property all around us.
He finally agreed he needed a new table covering. I mentioned some nice ones in the Vermont Country Store catalog. Plenty of patterns and colors to choose from. “How much?” I said their prices are reasonable and their dry goods are impeccable. I’ve been ordering from them for years.
Before any more tablecloth talk, let me show you the home where this old kitchen table and worn oilcloth resided.
Itsie lived alone in this enormous home in Corte Madera Canyon
No he wasn’t going to pay for a finished tablecloth. He’d rather buy from a bolt at the yard goods store and have it cut to the right size. I pointed out that ready-made oilcloths last for years and have a nice backing, but he insisted we go to Joann Fabrics in Corte Madera. That way we could stop at Safeway on the way and get him a can of soup too. A few minutes later at the fabric store he chose a new pattern. He had his exact table measurement with him. I insisted on a bit extra for overlap so it would drape.
His eyes lit up at all the new patterns. I tried to talk him into getting two cut to size so he could switch them around. “Nobody needs more than one tablecloth.” But oh how he loved the new one! He ran up the stairs ahead of me, eager to put it in place.
Then he immediately took it off the table and trimmed it so it barely covered the edge, removing the overlap. He liked to save scraps and in this case I watched him create scraps on purpose. Scant as these oilcloth strips were, he’d find some use for them, he said. He was a handyman at heart with a huge attic and a full-floor workshop, both kept orderly and organized, down to the last scrap of whatever he’d saved. He knew where to find everything and everything would be used eventually.
Itsie lingered at the bottom of his steep drive, trimming plants, waiting for neighbors to come by. It was his habit to invite them upstairs for a cup of coffee. He’d soon be telling the story about the morning spent choosing a new tablecloth, including specifics about how much money a person could save having oilcloth cut to measure like his.
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Every year about this time I have to come over here and defend fruitcakes. If I didn’t, some of y’all would be using them to build tiny houses. They’re heavy, yes, but sturdiness is part of the charm. A chunk of fruitcake should offer some resistance when you pick it up. A stomach should know it’s had some fruitcake. What’s the point if it looks and tastes like other cakes?
