Floyd’s wisdom - on cleaning out Nanny’s house
and the beer-can-pecker-man
Out in the woods, we try to leave only footprints.
Right now?
We’re covering my Nanny’s tracks.
She won’t be returning to her big yellow house.
Many of the things she stopped using years ago were given away. At our place we have a fantastic starburst clock that my mother grew up with.
But then there are the things that won’t fit in her room at the nursing home.
And all that stuff - dishes, linens, old clothes, nicknacks and the like all need to be dealt with.
Different things have different meanings to all of us.
My sister, for example, wanted the pumping bellows that went with the fireplace. I’d forgotten about the satisfying sighs it made when we played with it as children. She didn’t and it’s going to her.
Then there was my grandfathers crib board. It’s custom made and 2 foot long and reads Ellis Christmas 1985.
That’s the crib board we’d always use when playing with my Nanny.
Then there were the weird things - things without any monetary value but I wanted to make sure didn’t end up in a landfill.
One such piece is a bit of folk art my Granddad had. It was a sculpture of a man. The body is an empty Olands beer can. The limbs are a bunch of Olands bottle caps strung together. The head is made of wood and he has an old tin ashtray for a hat.
Best of all however?
When you pull up the body, an angry, red tipped penis falls down and out below the belt.
I was worried that this beauty would somehow get lost in the shuffle.
Who got the beer-can-pecker-man? I asked my uncle.
Skippy scooped that.
Thank god, I thought, I’m so glad it’s still in the family.
A side note dear reader: Can you imagine the beer-can-pecker-man in two hundred years on Antiques Roadshow?
Clearly, they loved these malted poison beverages. They were fertility drinks, used to lower inhibitions as part of a complex mating ritual. Sadly however they did make the phallus droop as you see reflected in this stunning example.
What about the big whisky bottle? In 1973 my Granddad got a 3.89 litre bottle of Canadian Club. The empty sat in the big yellow house ever since.
It’s yours Jimmy.
Phew, I would have hated to see that one go as well. The plastic straw used to pump the liquor was still there. I put my nose in and gave a great sniff.
The smells long gone, my uncle said.
I wasn’t so sure. I was convinced I could still catch a hint of my Granddad there.
It’s a bit of a fraught thing, cleaning out someone’s life and all of their possessions -especially when it’s your parents.
Typically, people get really wild around these times. They seem to revert to being ten years old with each other at the best of times.
A family lawyer friend of mine once said that no one fights over large sums of money. It’s typically a game of Who gets the silverware?
And this sort of stuff destroys families.
When Great Granddad Otis died, the family started getting ugly with each other. They started fighting over the antique furniture.
They had good reason to. In the old homestead, there was a massive antique farm table that would seat sixteen.
Sixteen at the table! Can you imagine?
But then my uncle Floyd stepped in with a frown.
This is family. Family matters more than stuff.
He was living in the old homestead.
Once everyone left that night, he hauled every stick of furniture out of the place.
He smashed it all up with an axe, doused it in gasoline and burnt the lot of it.
We’re family. We’re not fighting about things.
Bumps and discomfort are to be expected at times like these.
And?
I’m happy to report that there haven’t been any dining table bonfires burning.
Because it’s not the stuff.
It’s never the stuff.
The stuff is just a reminder of the memories, the stories and the love created under the roof of that big yellow house on the hill.
I’m pleased to report, dear reader, that I’m now the proud owner of a crib board, a whisky bottle and enough emotional baggage to fill a sea can.
Nope, no bonfires, just little oddities, stories and memories.
And maybe?
Maybe the trick isn’t to leave only footprints.
Maybe it’s to leave behind just enough weirdness that no one forgets you were here.
Stay sunny, you fools!
