Hobbies add dimension to life
Do you have a hobby? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines hobby as a “pursuit outside one’s regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation.”
I’ve been intrigued by the answers by teen-aged students when asked to list their hobbies. Many list shopping, spending time with family, watching TV or movies.
Strictly speaking, they do classify as hobbies, although I initially balked at so classifying them as that.
When I say hobby, I think of sewing, embroidering, gardening, woodwork, painting, drawing, playing a musical instrument and various endeavors in the artistic realm.
When I was a teen, we had a neighbor whom we called Granny. She wasn’t related to us, but she was a Yankee and didn’t want to be called Aunt Barbara, as my mother suggested. In the deep South, children did not call an adult by their first name and if they were very close friends, Mrs. Smith seemed too formal. So close family friends earned the honorary title of aunt or uncle.
Anyway, Granny was incredibly talented at oldworld skills. She carded and spun wool, dyed it with vegetable dyes, and knitted, wove, crocheted any number of pretty and functional items. She and her husband (Grampy) had bees and made candles from the beeswax. He enjoyed photography and especially liked very old cameras. Our visits to their house included many educational experiences.
Granny made bobbin lace. I was completely unfamiliar with it before she showed me. I didn’t learn how to make it, but my mother began to learn after she retired from teaching and I’ve inherited her pillow, patterns and bobbins. I think it’s a new hobby I need to begin.
My grandmother began to paint when she was in her late 50s. Her children were grown, her grandchildren were all busy with school, and she needed something more than the constant bridge games that were the pastime of Shreveport at that time.
She took lessons, she created an art studio in her attic, and she painted and painted and painted. We have each been gifted with beautiful landscapes and still lifes, mostly in water color, but there are a few acrylics.
She was always artistic and designed and sewed from necessity when her first child was young. In the early 1930s, income was very limited for Granddaddy who was just beginning his business. So, Grandmother visited the upscale clothing stores, taking her sketch pad and drawing the dresses she liked. Then, she went home and made a pattern and created beautiful dresses for her daughter, my mother.
She taught me how to sew and then sent me to someone else for lessons as well. I well remember riding the trolley up Highland Avenue to the sewing teacher’s house. In addition to clothes for myself, I often made doll clothes, which I used more on my kittens than on dolls.
Before I was married, sewing was a hobby, something I enjoyed, but was not a necessity. I remember sewing a robe for Daddy’s Christmas present, a velour pantsuit for a gift for my mother and shirts for my brothers.
After I was married, I sewed, embroidered and smocked clothes, especially Christmas and Easter dresses, for my daughters. It was not necessity, but it did provide them with nice clothes I could not have otherwise afforded to purchase.
I thought I’d smock dresses for my granddaughters. But, life circumstances found me busy in my 50s and 60s and those smocked dresses are not as popular with young mothers this far north as they were years ago in the deep South.
Skills, pastimes that are enjoyed and may have been learned out of necessity, can become a hobby when circumstances change.
Consider what new skill you’d like to learn and find something creative to fill your leisure time.
Editor’s note: Annette Beard is the managing editor of The Times of Northeast Benton County, chosen the best small weekly newspaper in Arkansas for five years. A native of Louisiana, she moved to northwest Arkansas in 1980 to work for the Benton County Daily Record. She has nine children, six sons-in-law, nine grandsons and three granddaughters. The opinions expressed are those of the author. She can be reached at abeard@nwadg.com.