Okay, so this will make me sound nerdy, but I'll go for it. I am super-excited to write even more because I have two old-fashioned ledgers now, after helping move my 104-year old grandmother (yes, 104) move into a new, smaller assisted-living room. As the elder will do, she was very intent on getting rid of everything. I mean, anything at all, big or small, she just wanted to get rid of. It seems as if the more they have, the more they don't want it. By the time we finish moving her into her new room, she'll have fewer things than Thoreau had on Walden Pond. (Though her living space is bigger than his shack was.)
But I digress. So these ledgers date back aways. Maybe the fifties. Completely unused. They have a space for the date, a wider space for a brief description of what writing I've done, and a smaller space for the number of words, maybe, and one more small space for something--but it's close to the binding, so I probably won't write anything there. There's about 200 or so empty pages in each one, maybe more. Certainly enough for a novel or two. How could I have done without these before?
On a similar, nerdy/writerly note, I am also happy that I got to keep in the family this wooden table with his and her magazine racks built into the sides. It looks like it was made for a married couple who slept in different beds (Did that really happen back in the day? Or was that just a jittery television executive's version of married reality fit for tv?) who now had a rack to put their books or magazine in that they were reading before they went to sleep. I can see Mr. and Mrs. Brady using this before they turned out the lights. Anyway, my uncles said they remember having that thing in their home growing up--and that was at least 75 years ago. They said they were under the impression that it was there for at least 25 years before that. So this thing is at least 100 years old. Maybe the Bradys wouldn't have used it after all. I'm glad anyway that I was able to keep it in the family. There's a chair I like a lot less, that might just be as old and ornate. The curved and designed wood on the back is apparently vintage, or something. Maybe I should put it on Antique Roadshow.
The moving of my grandmother and the decline in health of my father, plus the research I have been doing for the new novel, has all made for a jarring, melancholy time. It's going to happen to all of us, sometime.
I found the same thing when I helped my grandparents clean out their basement. It was an awesome find. But atlas, it's all gone now.
ReplyDeleteAs in American Pickers, you never know what you'll find in someone's basement or attic--or barn, schoolbus, shed, or overgrown yard.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting. Sorry it took so long to respond.