NEWS FROM THE SHADOWLANDS
Shady Scribings
Man, what a week in ND.
Relaxing time? Some, but not much. Chance to rest? Not really. Chance to have fun? Well...
The drive up on Sunday was interesting. Though there was little traffic in Minnesota that slowed us down, there was a TON of traffic going eastbound. The lake crowd from the 4th of July weekend had to put up with to major accidents that seemed to slow things down, though our side also had to watch out for it.
An accident near Alexandria had a pair of fire trucks and an ambulance on our side of the road when a car flipped and landed in the ditch, tires in the air and roof on the ground. There wasn't much of a run up to the curve, so he must've been going way, way too fast.
Another accident somewhere between there and St. Michael - I forget exactly where - an empty semi-truck had been knocked into the median by high winds. The lineup behind them must've been nearly four miles. I don't think the driver was seriously hurt, but his truck was sure messed up.
There also seemed to be a lot of traffic in ND between the major cities, which is somewhat unusual as far as I'm concerned.
Monday through Wednesday, well, to make a long story short, my aunts and uncles along with my Dad went through my grandparent's farmhouse. Now that was a tough job.
Picture this for a moment. My grandparents were 85 (in 2000) and 92 (in 2010) respecively. That's over 150 years of stuff between them! And I swear, they saved everything. Grandma never threw away a single card - she had boxes of them (some still containing money) from every anniversary party. She kept letters from both Grandpa and her courtiers (she was incredibly beautiful in her youth) and kept her diaries, lots of material for quilting, you name it. Grandpa was the type who always found at least two uses for something; a box for a model ship could be used to store tools, quilting material, toys. I had my eye on a wall mounted weather station that I've seen along the wall my entire life - it's original box was still in the house, being used for quilting material! I took that and put the item back in the box before adding it to my father's draw pile, once the sorting began.
And the sorting? Only six of the children were there. One had died in 1984 (my aunt Carolyn) and my aunt from Wisconsin wasn't there - mainly due to house allergies which had, for a long time, always bothered her to the point that she couldn't return and stay overnight. (Guess that little tidbit explained a number of things - which apparently caused a bit of a rift between that aunt and my grandmother.)
Anyways, they put items into categories and drew cards; whoever got the highest card (ace or a face card often) got the first pick. Anything remaining is considered open game for cousins and the like, while everything else will probably end up in an auction this fall.
That leaves the farmhouse itself. Lately the roof has become a target for raccoons, who have been tearing into the roof and making an access point. Was it a soft spot? The hole is in the front of the house, over my grandparent's bedroom and low enough so that the upstairs isn't even affected, though the house has begun to settle in places for many years. (The door in the utility room nearest the base of the stairs does not fully open without scraping the floor; it has probably done that since about 2003 or so.) But with the hole in the roof and three weeks of rain (and about four inches of water) the ceiling tiles have bowed drastically and left the floor sopping wet, creating a ton of humidity in the house. Pair that with the mustiness of the plaster walls, the (potentially) thick asbestos insulation, potentially hazardous wiring that may have been chewed apart (the water and electricity has since been cut) and all the stuff having been gone through and opened up - I've seen parts of the house that I've never seen before, like the attic upstairs where there was a crib in the corner that all of my aunts and uncles might've used. (They left it; probably just as well.) When Grandma was around, there was the china cabinet and the secretary that held trinkets and ornamental stuff that we were always forbidden to touch, so I never even looked at them. Small plates from visits to Kansas, tins containing countless dimes, china plates and bells that were both memorable (25th anniversary, 40th anniversary, the little servant bell that we were forbidden to touch) and all sorts of other things that were considered off limits. I went into Grandpa's room for the first time ever - I didn't even know there was a wardrobe around the corner and a closet in there.
The biggest treasure find of the job though had to have been Grandma's cedar chest. I mentioned she kept everything, right? There were two love letters that we read from my grandfather to her. He said that her letter to him had brightened his day, and that he felt he should respond to it, even though he could no longer see the lines on the paper and it was dark outside. That was in 1937; Grandma had been born in 1914 and Grandpa in 1918 (yeah, a younger man married an older woman; spooky) and the two wed in 1940. But can you imagine? Courting was done by letter in those days - you actually used paper, a pen or pencil (probably a pen, if it was a formal letter) and put a stamp on it and sent it. You had to write it during the day or under the glow of a kerosene lamp - they didn't have electricity until 1955 - and calling might've meant actually going to the door and knocking. Pure gold, absolutely pure gold. In fact, if we had found pure gold, I would consider the love letters more valuble.
Overall, I felt like the sorting went very well. I made sure to mention to my aunts that there was absolutely nothing in that house that was worth fighting over. Thankfully, there was no reason to be concerned. Stuff that was sorted was done with everyone in agreement, and things that were found were shared collectively as a group. Other things, like pictures and personal mementos, were put into a seperate box and stored collectively for everyone to share in a safe, common place. The rest will one day be auctioned to the highest bidder; but that's okay, because the rest of it is just stuff.
With a little luck, the raccoons won't get back in and make a nest of everything. The house won't fall in on itself immediately, though one day it will certainly succumb to the prairie. It's sad to see houses like that sit and rot, tombs to the living and to life, once beloved and treasured until nobody is around to care for them. Delzer Corner, which was coined by Grandma, now has three structures that are in decaying shape. My uncle Tom's house, which has been abandoned since 1999 due to mold and water issues; the 1935 schoolhouse (I think) which stands as a sentinel and is one of the 8 places in the world that I hope will always be there, and then the grandparent's farmhouse, which, I'm sure, won't be standing there ten years from now, if even two years from now.
Am I okay with that? Well, yeah, I think so. The house never was in great shape - don't get me started on the relationship between myself, the three inch sewer pipe and the toilet - and the beds weren't the most comfortable, and perhaps I did leave the place feeling a little stuffed up in the nasal category; but you know what? It was loved. There was love in that house - from Grandma, from Grandpa, from the family and all who came to visit. From the people who stopped there in blizzards, to the light in the window that was always on when friends or family were out and about. As long as you were out, Grandma would leave the light on for you (unless, you know, it was after midnight, and she'd let you know you were out too late the next morning.) It's just an old house - and quite frankly, I think I'd rather not see it than continue to see it rot more and more every year. If it came to not seeing it or seeing it in a more dilapitated state; I'd rather not see it. I'd much rather remember it as I did as a kid - the big blue house around the corner, as we drive up in the van, and the cousins are happy to see us, and Grandma and Grandpa are anxious to know where you've been, what you've been up to,and glad to see you've came home to visit. It was the place we went after Mom died, and the place we cried together about her loss. It was the place we went before visiting Yellowstone National Park for the first time. It was the place we went on a Tuesday in the summer, because we needed to get away from home for awhile and find a change of scenery. It was the place where I found my imagination, where a tapestry of a landing on a beach in a rowboat and a model ship - the Golden Hind - gave me a love of the sea and the inspiration for mermaids, even in the middle of the continent and about as far away from the sea a mermaid would want to get. (Though if I brought Shelly there, I think she could understand the love I, and Greg, had held for the place.)
The house, I think, was built in 1953. Eight children survived to grow up within its walls. A number of grandchildren stayed and played cards in it. One even learned how to deal in a week with a brand new deck of cards, and he sat there at the table, and practiced shuffling, and learned how. And then once he learned, he got schooled every way from sideways by his grandmother, who always went grand in Whist and almost NEVER lost. (And never cheated, mind you.)
...
Oh, and in case you're wondering, I think I still need to find a good pillow. In the meantime, my back is pretty good, despite sleeping on a narrow and rickety bed in my uncle's place.
Ahh, it's too late to be nostalgic after a long car ride. Guess I'll go through the 500 messages tomarrow.
Good to be home.
