A Few of My Favorite Things
Separating the Gems from the Junk
We have lots of “stuff” in this house. This weekend, I will begin going through it all, deciding what to get rid of before we move to our new house in Fredericksburg. While it actually has a lot more space than this house does, I don’t want to fill it up with all the same stuff.
We’ve lived in this house for 23 years, now — longer than either of us ever lived anywhere. That’s a lot of time to accumulate stuff. The house we moved from in New Jersey, we’d only lived in for 11 years. We got rid of a lot of stuff on that move, as well.
The only thing I regretted parting with that time was my record album collection. I had around 600 vinyl discs I’d acquired through the years, all still in their original album covers. They just took up too much room. We didn’t want to junk this place up with all of them. So, I donated them all to a local thrift store. I’m sure they all found wonderful homes to bring great music to.
Now, I have most of the music from all those albums at my fingertips, with spotify. So, I no longer regret that purge -not at all. Since I had smoked for most of the years I owned those albums, they all had that smoky smell to them. Who needs that?
Being Ruthless With the Stuff
I plan to be ruthless as we go through all this stuff. I’d actually begun the process a couple of weeks ago, even before we knew we were moving. Funny how those things work!
The Gibraltar Painting
However, there is some old stuff we will bring along with us to our new place. These are a few of my favorite things. There’s the old Oil Panting that dates back to 1890 and has been in my family ever since. It is a dark night scene of the waterway that sits in the shadow of the Rock of Gibraltar. A great great aunt painted it in 1890. Twenty years later, she painted an exact replica of it as a wedding gift for my paternal grandmother.
Both paintings are still in the family — my brother Chris has the duplicate. I’ve had the original for about 18 years, now. It came here when we moved Mom from Cherry Hill, New Jersey to Pawley’s Island, South Carolina in 2001. Prior to that, it hung in their living room, where Dad had spent the last several months of his life, in a hospital bed that sat right under this painting. He found it reassuring. I still do, myself.
The Rockers
Then there’s the two platform rockers. We hope to get them reupholstered sometime soon, but they are another family heirloom with great meaning, and thanks to Dad’s handiwork, they’re quite sturdy. He refinished and reupholstered them at least twice. These are older than the painting. Dad’s maternal grandfather and grandmother sat in them in the house Dad grew up in. That’s the grandfather who spent 3 years of his youth, from age 13 to 17, marching for a Union company in the Civil War. He was the last surviving 3-year enlistee of the Union army when he died in 1939 at age 92.
The Victor Talking Machine
We also have the Victrola (aka, Victor Talking Machine) record player he bought in 1917, the year before my Dad was born. It still works, too. We have a bunch of the old records that Martin Hager (Dad’s grandfather) used to listen to on it. They will all move with us.
The Bedroom Sets
We have two full bedroom sets, including the bed both Dad and his mother were born in, and the bed my mother had as a child growing up. The new place has five bedrooms — two of them will be furnished with these sets.
The Rolltop and Typeset Seperator
Then there’s the roll-top desk I just wrote about last week, that Dad used to always sit at, taking care of the family business. Atop it sits the typeset-sorter that my maternal grandfather and namesake, Pete Egan, used to use to set type. He was a print typesetter. I now use it so store lots of little knick-knacks and mementos. The desk and separator will definitely travel south with us.
I like being connected to those who have gone before in my family, through having things they used on a daily basis in my home. My home growing up had a lot of this stuff in it, and for every piece of furniture or item, Dad had a story that he told enough times that it would be hard to forget it.
The Book and the Computer
Just to be sure, he also wrote all these stories down, put it together in a book, and sent a copy to all of us. I still have my copy, Mom’s copy, and the original. I even have the original disks (3.5 inch floppies) that he wrote them all on, with his Macintosh computer. I also have the old computer. These, too, are a few of my favorite things.
They will all help to make the new house feel like my home.
Thanks to Elena Tucker for the idea for writing about a few of my favorite things. What are some of your favorite things?
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