Blue Mountain Pottery

Ah, memories, memories. When we got married hubby was fresh out of university and I was still finishing my degree, so that tells you how young we were. Happily we opened all the wedding and shower gifts because we had nothing, and we accepted people's offerings with a lot of gratitude. Well, of course, some of the gifts were more enticing than others.
The Blue Mountain pottery just didn't get us excited. And we received loads of it: a set of 6 small cup/mugs, a set of 4 taller mugs, a coffee pot (we don't drink coffee), and ashtray (we don't smoke), several vases of various sizes and shapes, and a host of other pieces I've done my best to forget. Gradually over the years, they disappeared in one way or another and we thought we'd seen the last of them.
Then, on our 25th wedding anniversary we had a party and members of the family scoured all the antique places and garage sales to find joke gifts for us. What else? Blue Mountain pottery. We laughed and laughed.





The best laugh of the night was when we opened a large, newspaper-wrapped piece. It was the big fish. After a moment I realized it was Mom's fish, given to her by some of my brothers and, true to form, she had kept and treasured it all those years.
"I want that back!" she interjected through all the comments and laughter. And she was serious. She still loved the piece. Here is a poor picture of it, the best quality I could get.

Anyhow the fish went back to Mom but when she died no one wanted it. Eventually someone took it and stored it in the basement because none of us could bear to get rid of it. Then on every wedding, birthday, or kind of gift-giving celebration since then, it has come out. My kids received it on their wedding days, I got it for a birthday, we passed it around to great laughter, each time. The best joke was when I figured I wouldn't get it for our 40th because it was in my basement, but somehow, someone found a duplicate. Now there are two floating around! Imagine my surprise when Sue gave me an article last week stating that kitschy Blue Mountain Pottery is now a hot item on E-Bay. Woe is me for all the pieces I used up or got rid of. In fact, I have to close now, to see if I can find Mom's fish in the basement!