Windchimes

scrapbooks and yardsales

Well, it's been a busy week and a busier weekend. We came home from our New Year's weekend visit at my husband's brother and family's (they live close to Charleston, SC) on Monday. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday taking down and putting away the indoor Christmas decorations. The outdoor lights still need taking down, unless I do the lazy, suburban thing and leave them up, unlit, until next December and let them shine again then. I also learned, over last weekend, that my father signed with a realtor, so I went down there on Thursday to see what I could help him with. Had a luncheon to go to on Friday, so drove there and back on Thursday, then there again Friday and back again Saturday. That's two hours, one way.

My Dad, one sister and I toured an independent-living retirement home on Thursday. I don't know what I'd expected before going, but I sure didn't expect to see so many people who seemed so much older than my father. I don't know why, he's not that old compared to most people in any kind of retirement home. My other sister and I toured a different one on Saturday. They were both very elegantly decorated and both dining rooms graciously served tasty meals, with a wide enough variety in menu choices that I'd never worry Dad couldn't find something there he'd like. He'd never have to cook, and in the first place we toured, the kitchenettes don't include stoves (or I'm not remembering correctly...but maybe I am, cause Dad liked the idea of never having to keep another stove clean...) We spent most of the rest of the time trying to sort through photos, photo albums and scrapbooks. Someone gave Mom a big beautiful scrapbook as a wedding present, with hard covers engraved with images of the Hawiian Islands, palm trees and other island themed drawings. She's kept a newspaper from 1959 in there, right after Hawaii became a state. There were also cards from her wedding shower gifts and Dad's bachelor party (I'd never imagined Dad even had a bachelor party). The book is falling apart, the glue between the cards and the scrapbook pages has long since given up the ghost. Mom noted what gift came with each card and Dad read through some of them, trying to remember the gifts and what happened to them. "A pitcher with six glasses. Those have probably been broken and gone for years. A milk-glass candy dish. I don't remember that thing." I just thought, "well, it doesn't matter. I'm sure Mom wrote a beautiful thank you note for every gift."

I remember listening to a recording of their wedding every year on their wedding anniversary. It played from a reel-to-reel machine when I was very young, then from a cassette tape in my teen-age years. Nuptials and reception took place in Wahiawa on June 11, 1960. I remember once Mom mentioned thinking, later on, that it was amazing so many people came as the wedding took place on King Kamahamaha day. I'm probably misspelling all these Hawaiian names, which is bad cause I used to have the spellings down pat. They had a huge wedding with a sit-down dinner reception and no immediate family attending. Her parents were in Nebraska, his were in Georgia. Kind of amazing, a Georgia boy meeting the granddaughter of Swedish immigrants to Nebraska on the Big Island in the middle of the Pacific. That reminds me, we found the contract for the teaching job that brought Mother to Hawaii. It also reminds me of Mom and Dad often laughing about his relatives asking him if his bride could speak English. They were not just Georgia southerners, they were Georgia southerners from the country...nothing suave or urban about them, very simple, solid people. I can imagine they wondered if Mom spoke English even after they heard her speak in her Midwestern, anchor-person tones.

Today, as I thought about looking through all these things, I wished I'd paid better attention when she told the stories behind all these mementos. Although we've found some I'd never seen before, there were plenty of them I remember looking at with her, halfway listening to her narrations. Maybe there's something to be said for regular, ritualistic repetition. Listening to their wedding ceremony every year on their anniversary, listening to how the events surrounding each of our births unfolded every year on each of our birthdays. "I remember (insert how many years old someone is on a birthday) years ago today telling your father it was time, going to the hospital." Then Dad would chime in, "yeah, and when we got there, they told me I might as well go home, it was going to be a while, this being your wife's first baby. I got home and they called to tell me I had a little girl." Then Mom's stories of how horrible the hospital was, expecting her to change her own bedding, take care of her newborn, and do chores just as if she hadn't just given birth, as well as some kind of calisthenics program. "I remember being so tired, and I guess it showed because finally someone said rather snottily, 'Well, gosh, this isn't your first baby, is it?' and I said, 'It suuure is.' They were much easier on me after that."

Each of my sisters could repeat similar stories. Oh, the hospital where my next oldest sister was born was "heaven compared to Tripler Army Hospital." (where I made my first appearance.) She didn't think much of their maternity room policies, but the whole thing made for an oft repeated story, and she never seemed to tire of telling it. Even when it was prefaced with "I remember 35 (or 36, or 40) years ago today..."

So yeah. It's taking a while to get through all these photos, albums and scrapbooks. And Dad wants to take a lot of them with him when he moves.

We also started going through the incredibly immense collection of knick-knacks, bric-a-brac, cake plates and platters, baskets, flowers...barely made a dent in that job, but made a place for amassing objects to go into a gigantic yard sale to be held in the near future. The nearer future if the house sells as quickly as Dad seems to be hoping it will.

On the (kind of) lighter side, I'm bringing the piano to my house next weekend...that piano I was supposed to practice at least thirty minutes a day on when I was in fifth and sixth grade or so...all those years Mom and Dad paid for my piano lessons until I asked them to please let me quit and they gave up trying to make me learn. My interest in that rekindled a few years ago and Mom had a few sarcastic laughs while I sat fumbling through music books during my visits home. I'm looking forward to having that piano here. I've wanted a piano for a long time, but that piano was supposed to live forever in that house, with my parents, who were also supposed to live forever in that house.

Spring semester classes start tomorrow. I hope getting all this out here in my journal will keep me from boring people with this subject in conversation. It's a good thing school gives me some other things to think about, study and analyze. Things I can analyze without the complicated emotional filters involved when I think about all this stuff.


J.H. Larrew
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