Some Unique Finds from Portland, Oregon

We visited our daughter, Anna, and her husband Sean, in Portland, Oregon, in September. One of our favorite things to do is to hit the antique stores and thrift shops. Here I am in a Portland thrift store with a chicken-decorated shirt that was just waiting for me to find! Someone had glued these chickens all over the shirt. On one side it says in small letters: "Chick Magnet." The chickens were made from art foam, feathers and googly eyes. It so inspired me that I had the children in Wednesday night Children's Church making these chicks to take home as refrigerator magnets.

How did I relate that to the Bible lesson for that day, which was about the book of Ezekiel?? Well, the earth was pretty bleak and the prospects pretty black for the children of Israel at that time, and the prophet Ezekiel gave them a way out, the offer of repentance and deliverance. His message gave them some bright, cheery spots of hope in their world black with sin and impending doom!


Can you guess what this chicken is used for? Give me your best guess before you read on!

Anna had found this chicken and was excited to give it to me when I was there. She really liked it herself, but she loves me and knows that I would go bananas over it, so she had decided to give it to me, the Chicken Collector!

Well, neither of us knew exactly what this chicken was made for. The only clues we had were: on one side it says "Tuppercraft." On the other side of it are the words, "Pin Kaddy." We were puzzled. We guessed that it was made by the forerunner of Tupperware, probably in the 1950's or so, but how it was used for pins was a mystery to us.


Then, as we were out shopping the antique stores and thrift joints in the town (which pastime is our favorite thing to do together), I stumbled across another one just like it! But this one came in its original box--with directions!

This is a diaper pin holder. You store the pins over the chicken's head, where they click into place and are held there so that Baby cannot take them off. The tail of the chicken is for opening or closing a diaper pin with one hand. You hold the pin in the opening in the tail and twist -- the pin will snap open. Twist it the other direction and it will close. What fun! We had never seen anything like that before!

So now both Anna and I each have a chicken pin kaddy and we are both happy! :)