A few little items I love from my grandfather's basement bar -
a whistle cup, a pine tree lighter complete with multiple ashtrays, a pissoir liquor pourer, a fisherman incense burner from Maine. None of them are plastic.
My father and I left New York and drove back to Baltimore, the U-Haul bouncing gently behind his van. “Dad,” I said, “what am I going to do with all this stuff?” My father sighed. “I don’t know,” he finally said, “but it’s not all going in your little basement.”
The divorce house had a full basement, but 2/3 of it had been turned into badly needed living space. The remaining area contained a sump pump, a small work bench that came with the house, and the furnace. There was one area of shelving back there.
My closets upstairs were stretched to capacity. I had purchased a gigantic secondhand hutch, so I knew where my mother’s china and glassware were going. Otherwise???
I was still living on divorce-level income, which meant my private-school salary was covering expenses for myself and my teenage daughter. Sort of. Pay the mortgage, the light bill, groceries, gas and repairs for the aging car and there wasn’t a lot left. Some months a bill or two got put off by necessity. Child support was tiny and not always dependable. It was a time of scarcity and worry. This abundance of unneeded things, all that was left of my grandparents and ultimately, my mother, too, was now in my home in boxes on the floor. In my head, along with everything else, was the responsibility of carrying the family legacy – of now being the matriarch at 43. How odd.
My dad and I looked at each other and realized we were headed to a storage facility. I really didn’t know how I was going to pay for it, but it had to happen. My father, ever practical, said wryly, “Don’t worry honey, you can afford it now.” It was true that money was coming. I’d been the executor of my grandfather’s estate long enough to know that. But it was not coming immediately.
We got the keys and opened the sterile, empty unit. It looked enormous. Until we put in the bedroom furniture and the wicker furniture. My father, ever the packing genius, fit the boxes of family memorabilia in around the furniture. By the time we finished, it was full, floor to ceiling. Oh my God.
A few years later, Dave and I got engaged. When we started talking seriously about where to live, he assured me there was room for my stuff in his basement. I drove him over to the storage facility. We had already decided to use the bedroom furniture, and the wicker was headed out to his empty deck. But I wanted him to see the enormity of just what wasn’t in my full house. He must have really been in love, because he said we could fit it all.
A few months later, a huge tractor trailer moving van pulled into his winding driveway. Dave blanched. Uh oh. I knew he wasn’t ready for the full load of me, for the stuff, for the enormity of the whole thing. I blanched, too.
What went into that formerly empty basement wasn’t just my grandparent’s memorabilia. It turned out that a full shelving unit of it was stuff relating to my daughter – old clothes, toys, books, items from her room that weren’t going off to college. Baby things I was saving for future grandchildren. My baby things, for heaven’s sake, rescued out of my grandparent’s attic yet again.
It was going to take years to go through it. It was just as easy to ignore it.
The divorce house had a full basement, but 2/3 of it had been turned into badly needed living space. The remaining area contained a sump pump, a small work bench that came with the house, and the furnace. There was one area of shelving back there.
My closets upstairs were stretched to capacity. I had purchased a gigantic secondhand hutch, so I knew where my mother’s china and glassware were going. Otherwise???
I was still living on divorce-level income, which meant my private-school salary was covering expenses for myself and my teenage daughter. Sort of. Pay the mortgage, the light bill, groceries, gas and repairs for the aging car and there wasn’t a lot left. Some months a bill or two got put off by necessity. Child support was tiny and not always dependable. It was a time of scarcity and worry. This abundance of unneeded things, all that was left of my grandparents and ultimately, my mother, too, was now in my home in boxes on the floor. In my head, along with everything else, was the responsibility of carrying the family legacy – of now being the matriarch at 43. How odd.
My dad and I looked at each other and realized we were headed to a storage facility. I really didn’t know how I was going to pay for it, but it had to happen. My father, ever practical, said wryly, “Don’t worry honey, you can afford it now.” It was true that money was coming. I’d been the executor of my grandfather’s estate long enough to know that. But it was not coming immediately.
We got the keys and opened the sterile, empty unit. It looked enormous. Until we put in the bedroom furniture and the wicker furniture. My father, ever the packing genius, fit the boxes of family memorabilia in around the furniture. By the time we finished, it was full, floor to ceiling. Oh my God.
A few years later, Dave and I got engaged. When we started talking seriously about where to live, he assured me there was room for my stuff in his basement. I drove him over to the storage facility. We had already decided to use the bedroom furniture, and the wicker was headed out to his empty deck. But I wanted him to see the enormity of just what wasn’t in my full house. He must have really been in love, because he said we could fit it all.
A few months later, a huge tractor trailer moving van pulled into his winding driveway. Dave blanched. Uh oh. I knew he wasn’t ready for the full load of me, for the stuff, for the enormity of the whole thing. I blanched, too.
What went into that formerly empty basement wasn’t just my grandparent’s memorabilia. It turned out that a full shelving unit of it was stuff relating to my daughter – old clothes, toys, books, items from her room that weren’t going off to college. Baby things I was saving for future grandchildren. My baby things, for heaven’s sake, rescued out of my grandparent’s attic yet again.
It was going to take years to go through it. It was just as easy to ignore it.
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