I am not usually fond of those fund drives that public TV and public radio put on.
Although I did once years ago appear on our local PBS station's drive, I more often avoid listening or watching during the drives.
Fortunately the Amazingly Accomodating Man alerted me to a special on this year's WTIU drive: a documentary on
Blenko glass.
Now, what you should know is that I grew up in West Virginia among this glass blowing tradition, with Blenko and Pilgrim and Rainbow and Kanawa and more all close to home -- so I have memories of stopping in Milton to visit the Blenko glassworks that go back more than half a century. I remember when guests could just walk out on the floor and stand around the glass blowers and crunch on the shards of broken glass on the floor, when we could pick out sharp bits of color from the slag pile to carry home. I remember when the new visitor center opened in the 60's and we walked through the glass garden where the walls were inset with glass and the "flowers" were created by sunlight streaming through the colored panels, or stood in the glass kalidescope that was about the size of an elevator and watched glass patterns shift around us. We would stop on our way to Charleston to visit Grandmother or we'd take company up to see the glass works, or we'd go to buy presents in the gift shop. Some of the Blenko pieces I have were my mother's, some were my aunt's, and some I've been gifted over the years. And now I have one that was a PBS premium!
Yes, WFIU offered Benko glass as a donation premium - hey, it worked with me. After all I didn't need another tote bag or umbrella...
So this past week a box arrived marked:
and cradled inside was this:
a brilliant blue Blenko pitcher.
