Younger Days
In documentaries about unearthed ancient cities--places like Pompeii--archaeologists are thrilled to find houses that have been left intact. The artifacts include the decorative items as well as things of a more utilitarian nature. The people centuries gone now have strangers nosing through what was theirs. It would be like your house being sealed up for a hundred or even a thousand years and then rediscovered. Everything that you saw as normal in your world would be curiosities to the excavator of the future.
Our house contains a record of the past--the story of our younger days. I have grown older--and by some estimates, old--as the things around me have stayed the same. There are pictures of a much younger me as well as the younger version of my wife and our kids when they actually were kids. There are relics of past adventures and remembrances of older days, Currently I am the curator of my collection.
Each box I open contains memories of younger days. In fact everywhere I look in this house reminds me of younger days. My wife and I have now lived here for over twenty years. We each brought a lot of stuff with us and and through the years accumulated more. We have a lot of older stuff from younger days.
If future archaeologists found our home intact as it is today I wonder what they would think? Here in my time I don't have to think about what they would think. Besides, I don't think this place will be intact as it is now sometime in the distant future.
Do you have reminders of younger days out in the open in your home? What are your favorite reminders of your past? Would you like to acquire a house that had been sealed up for a hundred years or more?
Hi Lee - being curator of our own collection makes sense doesn't it ... I can imagine inheriting a house would be so interesting ... yet the thought of the work and dirt ... would put me off!! I have started giving things away - makes sense as I age - cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteHilary, a sealed house might be a bit dusty, but if properly sealed it might not be too bad. Good luck us finding that properly sealed abandoned old house.
DeleteLee
I would love to explore a home that has been lift perfectly in tact for 100 years! A couple hundred would be even better!
ReplyDeleteMorgan, I think it would be one of the coolest things ever.
DeleteLee
Hi Lee!
ReplyDeleteLast summer I went to an estate sale at a massive cabin in the woods. It was as if the doors had been opened to a prior century. There were dusty place-settings for two at the dining table, old tobacco filled a pipe by an easy chair. I felt a bit like an intruder, but it sure was an adventure.
Diedre, that sounds so wonderful. I've been in places like you've described. It's a special feeling to visit such a place.
DeleteLee
I would enjoy having the privilege of going through a home closed for over 100 years. What treasures it would hold. We enjoy going to estate sales and seeing what the people collected and held onto... and what the family didn't want. In my house they'd find a few things of my childhood I haven't let go of yet like my roller skates, compelte with pom pom's and my tape recorder I made all my mixed tapes on. The kids today will never know the feeling of sitting by a tape recorder, finger on the record button while listening to the radio... just waiting for your song to play so you can record. Boy those were the days. LOL
ReplyDeleteJeanne, ah yes, I remember it well. I recall when I a local station would have a feature where they would play and entire album without interruption. I recorded several albums like that.
DeleteLee
I combined your Pompeii lead in with the archaeological news the other day and wondered if you, too, found a child in your pool... Yeah I know, but it's been a looooong day.
ReplyDeleteCW, I didn't find a child yet, but I haven't found my pool neither.
DeleteLee
We have pictures of us with the kids when they were little out in the open but most of those things are in boxes. I wonder why we never put one of our wedding pictures out? I may have to enlarge one and get it in a frame. Thanks Lee.
ReplyDeleteJanet’s Smiles
Janet, we have so many family photos including a number of wedding and kids photos.
DeleteLee
I have a 18" long china piggy bank that was given to me the day I was born. Next month it will be 67 years old. It's full of hairline fractures from having money dropped in it. I would never part with it. Oh! And the cork is missing from the bottom so it has tape over the hole. :D
ReplyDeleteCalensariel, I would definitely think of that as a personal treasure worth keeping and passing on to someone who cares about tradition.
DeleteLee
We've got a few photos out - weddings, children, parents, graduations - and some antique bits and pieces inherited. It's an interesting thought about someone walking into an intact home some centuries down the line ...
ReplyDeleteSusan, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few sealed up homes maybe not centuries old, but many decades. A home from pre-1960 would be cool.
DeleteLee
When we moved to the US in 2016, I had to discard a lot of my past relics - although, I had cleared out much of my accumulated 'junk' when my mum died and I had to clear my old room. Yet, I know some of my younger self remains in shipping boxes that the future archaeologists might find - if my step-kids keep it.
ReplyDelete[My Y post - https://rolandclarke.com/2018/04/28/y-is-for-ys/]
Roland, I can see how a major move like that would require a major purge. The question is will the next generation keep what meant something to you?
DeleteLee
Unlikely, especially as I'm not a blood relation. Plus, even my writing goes unread - beyond the signature in the front of the free-copy.
DeleteMy house has photos of my younger days, photos of my parents as young people and I have a collection of diary's from my younger days as well
ReplyDeleteJo-Anne, I think it's good to have those connections with the past and to share them with those who will be taking our place.
Deletelee
I would love to go through a home that has not seen the light of day for over a hundred years. That would be so much fun because one does see how people lived. I bet, if someone looked through my home they would know I loved to read André watch movies and collected knick-knacks. I have surrounded myself of things I love and one is my little Austrian hedgehog in a dyrndl that I got when I was 8 years old in Austria.
ReplyDelete