sweasel.com

Anyone seen my collection of runny babit kidneys?

Before he tore down his garage, my grandfather checked the attic it somehow had and found two Victrolas. One was in very good shape and both brought antiques aficionados out of the woodwork. I wouldn’t look in any of your boxes though. Seems like the downside is too great. But then I’m an eternal pessimist.

Before we sold the remaining items of a deceased Uncle’s, that had been sitting in our garage for several years, in a garage sale, Mr. Bean’s mother called us out of the blue.

She had a feeling that she needed to call and ask how we were doing. We told her that we were going to sell the remaining stuff of Uncle’s and she told us to look over the one cabinet carefully, as he had built in a secret drawer….and that they were missing some of his papers.

Lo and behold, we found the secret drawer, his papers, and $3000.

If it weren’t for my MiL’s sixth sense, we would have sold the whole thing for five bucks.

You know how the instructions always tell you to keep the original packaging, because shipping it back in anything else voids the warranty? Bet those boxes are empty–and the warranties had all expired before the previous owners moved.

why does a cooler in the attic automatically make me think body parts?

as my niece would say: “sgusting”

A couple of years ago, I led a campaign to clear out the basement of my 6-unit co-op building. There was a lot of stuff there that didn’t seem to belong to anybody. Among the things gotten rid of was a pair of skis, labeled with the name of tenants who (per building records) had moved out in 1958.

OTOH I found a serviceable power drill and a basin wrench in a cruddy old cabinet we tore out and threw away. Keep us posted on what you find (if anything).

If you find any old books with oddly familiar ‘leather’ bindings and strange symbols on the front, do not, under any circumstances read aloud from them…. 🙂

Strange fridge? Everyone could use an extra kidney or two you know. Especially if you’re a fan of gin.

As for me, I’m starting my first serious non-university writing project for the first time in ages.

These last two threads make me think so much of the house I grew up in. It was 150 years old (old, for these parts) in 1960 when we moved there. It was surrounded by 387 acres of trees, rented field corn and hay fields, three old barns and two good-sized overgrown orchards (hadn’t been touched/pruned/sprayed in decades). One orchard had a huge carpet of wild strawberries – my Dad would take us kids through it to pick strawberries every night for a couple of weeks. They were very small, few larger than my thumbnail, but wonderful-tasting. He would pick wild aspargus, which I didn’t like as a kid, but love now that it’s expensive and I have to pay for it. We also got pears, cherries and apples, all of which my Mom made great stuff with. I am famous for ruining a batch of applesauce; I stuck some metal spoon in it, trying to “help” and turned it grey. Mom kept glaring at it, as if she could get it back to its normal yellow-beige color by sheer force of will, and every 15 seconds or so said, “Now (iamfelix), WHY did you do that?” I hear those same words to this day from some family member, every time I screw up.

In the attic of that house we found tons of neat stuff, latest being c. 1920s … old gloves, a few garments, and a ton of lovely, leather-bound small books, some with carvings on the front that looked like ivory, and tooled/painted/gilded flowers. Shakespeare, Tennyson, all sorts, but my favorite was W. S. Gilbert’s Bab Ballads and Songs of a Savoyard. I looooved that book – loved it to death, in fact, as I carried it everywhere and it’s in tatters now. My favorite entry was Sir Guy the Crusader, which I used to quote back and forth with my Dad – I’d begin:

Sir Guy was a doughty Crusader,
A muscular knight, ever ready to fight;
A very determined invader
And Dickie de Lion’s delight.

And he would respond:

Lenore was a Saracen maiden,
Brunette, statuesque, the reverse of grotesque.
He pa was a bagman from Aden,
Her mother, she played in burlesque.

That was from memory, but I’ve forgotten most of the rest. Oh, I know a few more verses, but I’ve bored you enough. Nothing like a long, rambling trip through iamfelix’s upbringing!

Sir Guy, in all his glory.

The house, now, sadly, surrounded by subdivisions. It was built by the first Republican governor of Michigan, Kinsley S. Bingham.

Every time I visit my parents, I am enjoined to go up to the loft and sort out anything I want to take with me. I’m usually to be found there three hours later, rummaging through boxes of old children’s books or toys, feeling quite literal nostalgia.

When my great-grandmother died all of her belongings were moved to the front sitting room of my grandparents farm house. They lived in town most of the year so they never really dealt with it and just shut the door to the parlor. My cousins and I would go into that room and explore for hours and hours. I have loved attics and storage rooms and old people ever since.
I say fill up that attic with some good old American weasel junk for the enjoyment of the next occupants. When they find it they will know an eccentric American woman once lived here and tell wonderful stories about you.

iamfelix, it sounds and looks like it was a wonderful place. 387 acres, huh? With assorted foodies. Lovely.

I love that period of time around the early 1900s. I collect a certain paperdoll from that era and have several magazines that paint a picture of a very different time…WWI.

Never heard of Sir Guy, so thank you for sharing him.

Heh. I hope I have grandchildren one day. Any little girls will love going through my crap. My kids laugh that I have more toys than they ever did. *shrugs*

It would be unfair to single out anyone in particular, but there have been some really interesting posts on this thread.

They were good to read on a cold, wet day.

Oh, g’wan, Uncle B. Single out Felix. That’s a deeply cool old home place, Felix.

Oooo a cold, wet day. I’d love to have one of those come along.

I don’t have any neat attic stories though. All the houses I’ve lived in were never more than 10 – 15 years old in typical suburbs and they never had anything more interesting than insulation.

I knew a fellow who owned an apartment house. He found two preserved human heads in the attic once. Turns out they belonged to a student dentist who just forgot about them.