One of the few resources I remember my stepdad bringing with him when he moved into our house were a few of these super-cool tumblers. Real ones: not the cheap new knock-offs being sold today. The ones in our house were thick and sturdy, with the curved lip like you see in this photo:
Image from Smithsonian: National Museum of American History – Behring Center
We didn’t have the pitcher or platter (and certainly not the wicker cupholders), but if I remember correctly, there were deep-etched decorative lines/grooves encircling them. I think we had one that was magenta or fuchsia: a color in between the red and purple displayed here.
I *loved* these. So shiny and heavy compared to our light plastic seventies-colored tupperware cups.
As an adult I haven’t run across anything that compares to what I remember seeing and loving on our kitchen counter or filled with koolaid and ice in my stepdad’s hand while he presided over our little black and white television set filled with static. I still covet the colors, the shine, the substantial unbreakable heaviness like something jets and rockets could be made out of, but in colors of flashing July 4th night magic against black velvet. Colors that would never just peel or flake off. Colors at a time in my life when I couldn’t even imagine a dishwasher posing a threat to anything we had in the kitchen … partly because we never had a dishwasher. A non-human one, anyway. There was nothing my hands and the soapy water I sunk them in could do to hurt these strong vivid metalware things.
I am drawn to pens made of metal and/or with colors and finishes that remind me of these tumblers. So far I don’t have anything in my pen collection that exactly captures the look, feel or quality of them … but I’m working on it.
If you have a pen idea/suggestion and/or memory that would fit on this particular picnic blanket, you’re welcome to send it to me HERE.