south of the border

Edited to add: I found out via darling Leslie's blog, Brookhollow Lane, that there's a brand new blog link party this weekend - A Favorite Thing on Saturdays at Mockingbird Hill Cottage. So I thought I'd link up this already posted entry since it's about one of my absolute favorite things - this ceramic donkey of my mothers.

It gave me untold moments of fun and pleasure as a child, playing with the buttons it held. 

Please forgive me, I may not make it around to everyone's blogs until next week.  I look forward to reading about all of your favorite things. 

A photo of my mom and brother taken on a day trip to Tijuana Mexico in 1957.  My mom is the second from the right, wearing a dress with what they called a "mandarin" collar back then - my brother is the second from the left, note the bobby socks, penny loafers and rolled cuff Levi's.

My mother used to entertain all of my dad's visiting clients and their families when they came to So. Cal. on business trips.  That usually called for trips to Disneyland, Santa Monica Beach and Grauman's Chinese. This group must have visited before and was looking to be more adventurous. 

I know the young man on the left is the son of one of my parents favorite people, a man my father worked for in the late 1940's and became the best of friends with.  They would meet up across the country, at various golf courses until his former employer and then beloved friend, passed away in the 1980's.  Sadly I haven't a clue who the other woman is with her darling son.

I don't know the back story of the ceramic burro, when it came on the scene and from where?  But I thought it looked like it could well be a souvenir of this trip to Tijuana and it holds a very special place in my heart. It was a fixture of my childhood. My mother always kept her stray buttons in it's basket and I loved to play with all the buttons when I was little.

I was so sad when I couldn't find it in it's spot at my parents house after my father passed away last year. I looked and looked, with no success.  There were only a few things I was specifically longing for and seeking out and they all proved to be illusive until the very end.  

And each time it was my husband who found them, this cherished ceramic burro and my mom's grandmother's baby doll.  (A couple things proved to have truly vanished without a trace WAH!)  Now I look for special places in my home for them, where I can always enjoy them.