One of the true benefits of today's communication capabilities is that of sharing memories with others. We frequently receive e-mails that are of the "remember when" ilk. And we always enjoy reading them if for no other reason than they remind us of things which we remember fondly from our childhood.

For example, a friend in Michigan, who is also a quilter, sent us a picture of a fabric measuring machine which we well remember but have not thought about for years. Although we suspect almost any store that sold fabric would have had one of these machines, we can only seem to remember the one in the basement of the J.C. Penney store when it was located on the corner of South and Burdick Streets in downtown Kalamazoo, Mich. Once a choice was made regarding the purchase of fabric, the saleswomen put the cut end of the fabric in the machine, clicked some sort of a button and proceeded to measure out one's desired length of fabric. Once the correct amount was reached, there always seemed to be a lot of back and forth movement with the fabric in the machine to make certain that the yardage was correct. Then, a lever was pushed down to make a cut in the selvedge edge of the fabric after which the salesperson, with a great deal of gusto, ripped the fabric from the bolt. As a child we were always fascinated not only by this machine, but also by the ripping of the fabric. We have no idea when these machines fell out of favor, but we do think the cutting of a piece of fabric is much less dramatic today than it was in our youth.

We have to think there was also a fabric cutting machine in Kalamazoo's local department store, Gilmore Brothers, but we don't remember it. Instead, we associate Gilmore's, as it was called, with being able to x-ray our feet in the shoe department. Our great aunt Ethel was in charge of personnel at Gilmore's and her office was just beyond the children's shoe department. So every time we went to visit her at work, we stopped to x-ray our feet. The image of our x-rayed feet was a wonderful, ghostly green and we remember thinking how cool it was as we wiggled our feet inside our shoes. We also have no idea when these x-ray machines disappeared although we suspect, given the amount of x-ray our feet withstood, that we are fortunate our feet are still functioning.

And thinking about x-raying our feet reminded us, of course, that we still have our cherished skate key. Our skates are long gone, as are the many bumps and scrapes we inflicted on ourselves while skating the sidewalks of Kalamazoo.

But we still have our key hanging from its ribbon which we always wore while skating just in case something came loose. We greatly enjoyed roller-skating, not to mention ice-skating and have very fond memories of doing both.

Several years ago, we mentioned that while we were growing up our family was the proud owner of a Flying Scot. In fact, we mentioned this riding toy several times in the column, a fact that has recently been noted by Bill Oliver of Monticello, Iowa. In his e-mail he wrote: "I too not only remember the Flying Scot ... but have mine. I salvaged it from the weeds at my mother's house in Le Mars IA _ a town in Northwest Iowa (Home of Wells Blue Bunny Ice Cream) ... she had it totally rehabbed for me _ new paint _ new wheels _ new decals. I now have it at my house and my grandsons ride it when they are home with us. I have a picture of both my brother and I on it in the early 50's _ my own sons on it in the mid 70's and my grandson's picture in the mid 2000's."

Evidently Bill has spent some time trying to research the Flying Scot on-line with little success. He told us: "I have never found anything on it online. I actually sent it's picture to an appraisal firm (What's it Worth to You.com). Their expert' had never seen one before and suggested it was locally produced in the midwest and then arbitrarily assigned it a value." We are reasonably certain it was not just a midwest toy. We think Bill is very lucky to still have not only his Flying Scot but also his memory of the Christmas when it arrived at his house. He tells the story like this: "The custom on Christmas eve was to go to the Stanton Evangelical United Brethren Church for a children's Christmas program where every child in the congregation had some part _ either in the angel choir or part of the manger scene (where there were a lot of choice speaking parts). At the end of the program every child in attendance (even visitors) got a bag with popcorn _ ribbon candy _ and an apple. Then everyone returned home and opened presents. In preparation to leaving for church the last thing my brother and I did was to go in and check under the tree on all our presents ... Upon returning home, low and behold, under the tree was the Flying Scot and at no time had either of our parents left our sight _ So it had to be Santa Claus."

We thank Bill for contacting us regarding the Flying Scot and certainly wish him well in continuing to research it. We have to think that there are any number of people who fondly remember the Flying Scot from their childhood. We certainly do and it is obvious that Bill does too.

In closing, we are very glad in so many ways that we are still surrounded by things from our childhood, although we must point out, our Flying Scot is not among them. Nonetheless we always enjoy seeing what we do have and being reminded so fondly of our childhood. We can't imagine ever parting with anything from our youth. And yet, each and every time we look at something, we realize how many somethings there are in the house and think, poor Christopher. Someday all of this will be his problem.

We remain,

In these Otsego hills,

The Ellsworths

The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326, by telephone at 607-547-8124 or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny.rr.com. They look forward to hearing from you.