Every picnic basket needs some “No-Tipsy” bottle holders made with BUTTONS from your stash. 

I once heard Elizabeth Zimmermann call a knitting method an “un-vention” — meaning she couldn’t be sure that process was never done before, but it came from an original thought of her own, based on applied, practical experience.

That’s exactly how I developed these “No-Tipsy” holders to keep bottles from falling over when the lawn is not perfectly flat. I’ve seen commercial versions used to support wine glasses.

Here’s how to make your own!

(1) For each “No-Tipsy” you will need… one BBQ skewer with a loop/ring at the top, one button (with 2 or 4 holes, not a shank) that fits inside the skewer ring, one very large button (a great use for those big, vintage buttons you inherited), a bracelet or other sturdy hoop that’s big enough to fit over your favorite bottles, some strong thread, a needle, and scissors. (Or, instead of thread, some wire, a wire snipper, and really pointy pliers. I have never used wire, but it should work out OK.)

(2) Be sure to test the bracelet for sufficient diameter of the hole. Any design will work as long as it’s strong enough to support the bottle. I usually use bangles.

(3) Thread into the small button, through the ring of the skewer, into the large button, back through the second hole of that one, then back through the ring and the second hole of the small button. Wrap the ends around the bracelet and tie a firm knot. It’s OK if it’s just a little loose, it will tighten up later.

<If you are using wire instead of thread, use your judgment according to the gauge and tighten as needed by twisting. YMMV. Be sure to roll under the cut ends so no sharp points stick out, hence, the pliers.)

(4) Assuming you are sewing, repeat the process so the thread goes at least four times round. If your buttons have four holes, you’ll alternate, sewing through each.

(5) Next, wrap the thread a few times around the “thread shank” as you would when sewing on a button (perpendicular). This tightens the attachment.

(6) At the end of the process, fasten with an overhand knot. You’ll likely have to slide it up into place by using the needle as a tool. It’s hard to get your fingers into the confined space.

(7) Cut the thread and tuck the ends in, between the buttons.

(8) To use, push the skewer into the lawn as far as needed and drop the bottle in. Voila!!

CAMP CROWDER MISSOURI

Dec 25, 1942.

Dearest Ruth:

Thanks a lot for the Xmas present, just what I wanted most of all. We had a good time last night after all the presents were passed around. Captain Newell makes a good Santa Clause (sic). We all ate candy and cookies till we were full in the face. At 11 o’click most all went to church, it was filled to the roof.

Both yesterday and today we slept till 7:30, went to breakfast, and back to bed till noon. I am sending you a menu so you can see what a dinner we had today. But there don’t seem to be the spirit to it like home, even if it is as good as it would have been at home. This afternoon we went to the Field House for the broadcast, maybe you heard it.

Both Tom Brown and Robert Preston < actors > are in our battalion. Here they are only Pvts. like all the rest, even when it comes to K. P. Both are on duty Sunday.

 Tom Brown, actor
 Robert Preston, actor, show poster

I am waiting to get it New Year’s but that day will be the same as every other day here except for pay on New Year’s Eve. I have only 47¢ and 2 pkgs cigarettes left so there will be a hot time in camp that night.

Had a letter from Dayton < Sneve, a neighbor back home > today. You can let him see the menu for he was wondering if we would have a good Xmas dinner. I haven’t got time to answer right away. Only been in school 2 days this week and a test coming up tomorrow so I will have to do some studying tonight yet, before lights go out.

Wishing you a Happy New Year.

Love, Thorgel.

P.S.

Has Marion seen her sailor sir? Or is he froze in at the lakes.
< This is a joke. My mom’s sister later married Art Serr, who was in the Navy at Pearl Harbor. >

Almost Christmas, 1942.
WWII training in Nowhere, Missouri.

Dec 19, 1942.

Dearest Ruth:

Thanks a lot for your letter, got it just before chow tonight. I did not get to read till afterwards cause I was really hungry. The Miami gang < guys who trained together there the month before > all had another shot just before dinner < immunizations >. This makes 9 now. It makes a person a little dizzy for a couple of hours so it was very little we had for dinner.

We really have a swell Captain in this Co., he came around right afterwards and told us we could go to a show this afternoon in place of school. The King of Kings is on for 3 days here at the field house. The only thing none of us like about it is we have only wooden benches to sit on and they get plenty hard hard to sit on for 2½ hours.

Have now gone to school 8 days. We have nothing but open classes, so there is no studying to do after school. It’s all military secrets we are not even supposed to mention anything about it to other boys at the barracks. I could now tell you exactly what you would hear from a plane coming over Sioux Falls wanting to make a landing but I guess it’s best not to. You would maybe land it right in the middle of your tree garden or over in our chicken yard.

The best I can do describing our schooling is like playing Dominoes only it’s done by head and chest phone and the fellow you play with is across the street telling you what ones to use. It’s really great to be in the Army playing games 8 hours daily. Most of us don’t seem to think we are even earning our meals after 5 weeks of this.

I think I could best you in a game even if you are the best bowler, you are doing all right with that left of yours.

You should see all the Xmas packages we have here. We have an 8 ft square in the corner of our barracks with a pile about 4 ft high. No one is allowed open their packages before Xmas Eve, so there will really be some time here then. A few have tried and got caught. That means a day of K. P.

By the way, you were mentioning about that in the last letter I got. I haven’t been on K. P. yet, but after being here 2 weeks everyone gets 1 day. Every 2 weeks they are picked by alphabet, that way everyone gets a fair chance. By the way I forgot to thank you for the snapshots. The one I have in my billfold and the other is hidden in the footlocker. that’s the one on the fireplace. < T. K. built a brick fireplace out in the yard at mom’s house. > The boys say they would really like to have something like that to back up to and make hotdogs in the moonlight. That’s something we don’t have here at Crowder.

It’s been cloudy and raw ever since I came here and we wear our raincoats most of the time back and forth to school. We also had a blackout here the same night as home. They fired 3 shots from the cannon, by the last shot everything here was dark.

The boys here thought it was funny, but us from Miami were used to that every night so we thought it was just to have lights in the evening. Here we can stay outside every night till 11 o’clock but there is nothing to go to outside the camp. The towns around here are only small ones and everything is so high < expensive > it’s terrible. We can get the same things at the P. X. for almost half. Homes around here look like the ones in Arkansas. That house of your Uncle Charley’s would be a mansion here so you can imagine what these would be.

All of us were really disgusted when we came here after being in Florida and then landing out here in the sticks, but the boys here are all swell fellows and we have lots of fun together the best we all know how. So I suppose a couple of months here will pass by too. From here it will either be back to Tampa or Fort Lewis Wash. The ones that finished school when we got here went to Fla. and the ones before that went to Wash. It seems to be every other shift that go to the opposite direction. I would like to go to Wash. from here then I would be only 30 miles from Harold < his brother > and the rest of our relations out there.

From there it’s an A. P. O. in about 6 weeks. I am going to try to get a few days off before leaving here but at the present time it’s impossible cause so many have gone over the hill lately < AWOL >. 2 were brought back yesterday and they will be in the guard house 6 months at least. Every day the Captain warns us that it’s best to stick around through the Holidays. After that he will try his best for all and he is a man that don’t say much but he has served 27 years so he really knows the ropes.

Well I guess I must quit for tonight. Have ½ hour before bedtime. I am going over to the P. X. for a malted milk first, so Good Night and lots of love, Thorgel.

Merry Xmas to all and don’t eat too much candy and nuts.

Given that it’s Memorial Day weekend, we have been to the cemeteries where our folks and our relatives are buried, and I’ve been thinking about how much I’ve always liked cemeteries — they are quiet and cool, full of history, beautifully landscaped, and seeped in stories of long lives and short ones. And even, sometimes, we find beautiful art and architecture, masterful craftsmanship and typography, and inspiring sentiment.

Although I completely understand why many people these days feel that they want to be cremated when they die — it is the norm in many cultures, and it sounds good to me — many of our elders are more “used to” the idea of being buried, especially if there are family graves in the same cemetery or if their spouse is already gone. That’s the way it was with my mom. Our dad died over 15 years earlier.

So when the time came, our mom was very pleased that Mt. Pleasant Cemetery was the first in South Dakota to “go green” and facilitate burials that are simple, eco-friendly, and less wasteful of resources. Her parents and other family members are buried there, and so is our dad. She wanted to be with them but she didn’t want “all that fuss and denial.”

Mom was an avid gardener all her life, she maintained a chemical-free zone in the back yard for some 50 years, for growing food crops and perennials, and she saw no point to the idea of “preserving” her dead body by any of the funeral practices that are still common. She didn’t want a formal funeral and I can hear her saying, at age 99, “I’m already done with this body. Why would I ever need it again after this life?”

We went through the casket-and-vault routine when our dad died — only because mom thought she had to do so — but she was relieved and pleased we would bury her in a woven wicker basket and she would be allowed to decay into the earth over time, like mulch.

Funeral practices like chemical embalming may have made sense when there was no refrigeration available — as during the Civil War — but I believe it’s time we moved on and treated the land and the groundwater in our communities with as much respect as we do our deceased loved ones.

Surprisingly, there are not many cemeteries in the Midwest listed as certified by the Green Burial Council. At least this surprised me. This is an area of the country where agriculture is familiar and widespread, where seasons are significantly different from each other, and where the “cycle of life” is well understood. It baffles me why the natural order of life, growth, death, and decay seems to work for crops and gardens, yet doesn’t extend to people. I am not being disrespectful, I am being reasonable.

So, I would encourage families who have “always done it that way” to do some research and consider the options in their area for more “eco-friendly” burials. Maybe your local cemetery would consider “going green” also, if enough families asked about it and inquired why they haven’t yet done so.

More info here: Green Burial Council

MEMORANDUM:

It has been brought to the attention of this office than many civilians in the office are dying and refusing to fall after they are dead. This must STOP!

On and after 1 September 1944, any civilian caught sitting up after he is dead, will be off of the Payroll immediately (i.e.: within 90 days), in those cases where it is clearly shown that the employee is being supported by a typewriter or other property clearly marked “U. S. Government”, additional time (90 days again) to clear the property during which civilians shall be carried from the rolls, may be granted. The following procedure will be as stated below:

If after several hours it is noted that a worker has not moved or changed his position, the supervisor will investigate in an apologetic manner, of course, considering the highly sensitive nature of civilians and close resemblance between death and their natural working habits. It is specifically directed that investigation procedures be done quietly, so as not to disturb the civilian if he is asleep. If any doubt exists, as to the civilian’s condition, it has been found that extending a government check serves as an acid test. If the civilian does not immediately reach, it may be generally concluded that he is dead. In time, you will be able to know the difference between death at work and quiet repose. Be on your guard that in a few instances that instinct to grab is a reflex, a spasmodic clutch.

If the civilian is dead, fill out Special Form No WDGRT 67593343, making 15 copies. Mail the first three copies to the office, together with the tops of three first aid kits. Copies 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 will be forwarded to the Messenger Boy of the office concerned. If the man serving in the capacity of Messenger Boy of the office is an Army Officer, (as is usually the case) be sure his serial number is clearly indicated. Just send copies 13, 14, and 15 somewhere. This is a must. In all cases, a sworn statement by the dead man covering his history for the past ten years must be included. If the dead man cannot write, his signature must be witnessed by two live persons (they are hard to find except on pay day) giving full names and addresses.

TO ALL OFFICERS, DEPARTMENT HEADS, AND CIVILIAN SUPERVISORS::
::::::::::PUSH THE BOY ASIDE AND MAKE ROOM FOR THE NEXT CIVILIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Signed,

Rigor Mortis
Captain, USA

On the way to his next Post, Thorgel is transported from sunny Miami Beach to somewhere in Missouri. No going home for Christmas, and nothing to do but wait.

Camp Crowder Mo.
Dec 13, 1942.

Dearest Ruth:

I am now at Camp Crowder Mo. a hundred miles from nowhere. This is the worst I have seen since I left home. This is really what you call out in the sticks.

The nearest town is 12 miles and nothing there, it’s just a small town. I am supposed to be here 6 weeks for schooling. Started Friday a.m. taking Aircraft Warning. It’s all like greek to me but I guess I will try to make the best of it.

There was some 20 boys that went over the hill < deserted > since we got here so you can imagine what it’s like here. You will have to let me know what Christmas will be like this year cause I won’t see anything here. I guess we are all here to make up for the time we had in Florida.

I don’t know of anything more to write about for tonight so I guess I will roll over and try to dream of the past.

Don’t forget to write cause that will be more of a treat than anything here.

Love
Thorgel.

address
T. Klessen U. S. Army
Co. D. 37th Sig. Tng. Bn.
Camp Crowder, Mo.