Almost All Gone

Old photographs can be haunting even when you don't know anyone in the picture. Change is the murderer of all things. When you do know the people in the photograph, you can be left feeling powerless and sad. I look at the picture above and think, my god, was the world ever really like that?

There are only three people in that picture who are still alive: My sister the wolf, my father, and me. It's funny that we three are sitting together while everyone else outside of the car is waiting to be swept away by Time and Motion.

My grandmother Agnes, far left, was the first to go. This picture was taken before she suffered a stroke while weeding her garden on a sweltering hot day. It didn't kill her: it robbed her of herself and her memory. She became first a wordless, frustrated child, and then, slowly a vegetable confined to bed. She died of choking while my Aunt was feeding her.

And the auto moves on.

Next was her husband, my grandfather Adolf, the first alcoholic in the family, standing on the runner board to my right. He was coming out of an antiques show when he was struck by a car driven by a young idiot with a girl in his lap. He was hit so hard that his body was thrown clear across the street. Grandpa had a hard life, had a lot to cope with, including the loss of most of his tongue to cancer. He was a very matter-of-fact guy. I didn't know about most of his troubles.

So my father was the first one of my parents to become an orphan, while I was still quite young. The auto had a chance to speed forward some few years before the next one dropped away, the man holding the camera, my grandfather Claude. He died at home, in my grandmother Melvina's arms, I believe of an aneurysm.

Grandma (sitting on the running board) went steadily downhill after that. She was already frail. I don't think that she ever forgave Grandpa Claude for dying first. My mother and her brother got her into an assisted living facility, a better place than many I've seen. I was there to help move her from her house into her new apartment. She tried to get along, but I could see she was bitter. I came back home to Maine and never saw her again. On her deathbed she told my mother, "Is this really all there is? What's the point?" and early last year Mom said she was starting to feel the same way about life.

The car didn't last long. Dad loved old cars, but he kept switching them out. The one I remember was a big black enclosed car the size of a small house.

The picture was taken at our house on Edgcombe Road. Even though I was very little, I have many memories of my life there that I can "see" as clearly as when they happened. My father didn't believe me, but I was able to describe the house to him in detail. Sometimes my memory is so vivid that I feel like I'm looking into an alternate universe. Can see into it, but can't go there. The black automobile carried the three of us away from all that. It is far, far in the distance.

Sometimes I don't think I understand the world or the way it works any better than I did when I was that little kid behind the wheel.

-- Freder.

The House that Was

In yesterday's post I mentioned some tiles. They are heavy floor tiles in a green and white checkerbox pattern. I didn't mention that there are several beautifully carved, moss-covered bricks and stone finials of various sizes and shapes that I also intend to bring with me.

And thereby hangs a tale.

I was very, very small when our family lived in St. Paul, Minnesota. Not more than three years old. So my involvement in the story is limited to a specific memory that has stayed with me all my life. We'll get to that.

A very short drive from where we lived, there was a beautiful house being offered for sale. It was built from European brick in a European style, not an old house but one built from old materials, designed to look old. The owners had traveled all over the world, and wherever they went they bought materials for their home: English stone, Italian brick, Mexican floor tiles; they even bought antique bathroom fixtures and restored them. I cannot give you accurate details about this, only my impressions based on what I was told a long time ago.

Now the owner was a widower, and either the house was too much for him alone, or he wanted to escape the memories. But he still loved the place, and he showed its features off to my parents with genuine and justified pride.

My parents, being the people they were, thought that the house was wonderful and wanted to buy it. They made an offer.

Here is where my memory comes into play. One day, my parents drove us all out a short way to what was, for me, a strange and fascinating location. We made a left turn off the main road into a heavily wooded drive. At the end, it opened out onto what looked like an archeological dig. Whatever had been there was gone. The ground was torn up and turned over. Gravel and rock mixed with dirt and brick, mortar, stone and broken bits of tile.

My mother, father, sister and I all walked our separate ways across the wreckage, pulling out bits of checkered tile, beautifully carved old bricks, broken stone finials, and more. It was very much like a treasure hunt to me. I knew nothing of the backstory.

The town of St. Paul had also made an offer to the owner of the house that was. It was no more than about five thousand dollars more than what my parents had offered, but he accepted it.

They immediately tore the house down to make room for a highway expansion.

My family picked the bits and pieces that we liked from the ruins, and brought them home with us. Over the years, in every home we've lived in, they have served various, mostly ornamental functions. For the last couple of decades, most of the pieces have adorned the stone patio just outside the back kitchen door.

I managed to move some of them to my new house before the snow flew, but at the moment they are buried in the front yard, under about three feet of the stuff.

I will be back for it, every piece.