An Item From the CP Swap Meat

Cleaning Machines

ID SM0246 (photo)
Arrived 5/4/07, USPS
From Bob Bernstein, Nashville, TN
Description Handmade book, 11"x11", 14pp
More info BongoJava.com
Swapped for TBD
Status at CP

While some swappers have stretched our requirement to send only items "made for yourselves," others have sent immensely personal items, and this is one of our favorites. Susan Dvora Bernstein wrangled her three boys into clean-up duty with a song "Cleaning Machines," which she wrote herself. Many years later, her son Bob asked his friend Kurt Lightner to illustrate the song as a birthday gift. The illustrations were so popular, Bob turned the song into a book with some help from Nashville printshop Isle of Printing. His mother writes: "I always wondered what my three sons would remember about their childhood… The cleaning lesson may not have stayed with them. However the more important lessons of creativity and imagination have endured." Vocation-wise, Bob is roasting coffee, some of which he sent along with the book.

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The perfect stocking stuffer to add to any design gift, a 3-Pack of our a durable 100% made-in-the-USA memobooks, inspired by vintage farmers' planting books and other practical, historic, mostly-midwestern American design. $9.95