Introduction
This post is not about the stage of child development in
which objects that are not perceivable are still understood to exist. Rather, I’m
examining the peculiar phenomenon of physical objects that last far longer than
anybody could expect them to. I’ve selected half a dozen surprisingly enduring
items to display and discuss.
Fork, ca. 1900
This fork is ancient, obviously. Sure, you could find older
stuff in a museum, but this object saw regular use until only 15 years ago. It
belonged to my wife’s grandma, and her parents before her. I once watched her
use it while making her famous (and delicious) fried chicken, which had only
one ingredient—chicken—which she cooked over very low heat in only its own fat.
The only other kitchen tool she used for this dish was a skillet. Her kitchen
was exceedingly spare, lacking not only a dishwasher but even a dish drying rack. She used this fork pretty much until she died.
From there it transitioned from tool to family heirloom.
Paperweight, ca. 1960
It’s weird inheriting property. Whenever I pick up and inspect
this paperweight, I still half-expect that one of my brothers, as a proxy for
my dad, will come out of nowhere to seize it and admonish me again. This
paperweight still seems like it’s my dad’s property, as if—looking down from some
spirit world—he might still have a problem with my touching it. I never got his
blessing to take possession; it’s merely one of the spoils of having outlived
him.
The little cat drawing in the background is only a year or
two old. I included it because my younger daughter (featured in the framed
picture, ca. 2004, to the right) has already expressed astonishment that I kept
it. She tossed off the picture very hastily and it was on its way to the
recycling bin when I intercepted it to use as a desktop tchotchke. I’m going to
see how long I can hang onto it.
Thimble, ca. 1965
This thimble must have been my mom’s, and since it appears
to be sterling silver, she probably acquired it before taking on the expense of
children. Though not as old as the fork and the paperweight, it has the added
distinction of having been in my possession for quite a while—since about 1990
when my brother Geoff gave it to me. I’d loaned him a sew-up tire patch kit, and he returned the kit with the thimble added. The (partial) history
of this thimble is given in a letter I wrote to Geoff on April 14, 1996:
[The need to mend a shoe with needle and thread] called for the Velox sew-up patch kit I use from time to time. Every time I need it I hope, almost desperately, that I still have it around somewhere. It’s one I bought from Square Wheel (the price tag is still on it, $7.95) more than five years ago to give to you so that you could repair a bunch of my tires. Inside the patch kit tin is this really groovy thimble, with engravings of birds and ivy and stuff all over it. Accompanying the thimble is your Post-it note: “Dana, I found this v. cool thimble in the basement-kine [of our childhood home]. Please don’t lose it. Hugs & kisses, GA.” I always get a kick out of that. The patch kit itself is great; the thick, curved needle is industrial-grade, and punched through the thick rubber of my shoe just splendidly, without puncturing my finger thanks to the thimble. But the note is more impressive yet, due to its staying power. I mean, it had to be more than five years ago you wrote it. The Post-it is written in faded fountain pen and is on the verge of falling into four pieces, as it’s been folded and refolded so many times. But it’s still around. Amazing for a product with the intended lifespan of perhaps just a few days or weeks.
I still have the patch kit somewhere in the garage—it pops
up occasionally before going missing again—but the last time I used it, the
curved needle and Post-it were gone. The thimble now lives in my desk as one of
my treasures. And as often happens, a chance photo of the note still survives ... not nearly as cool as the curling-up, faded note itself, but better than nothing.
(Does it bother me that this thimble could still technically
be my mom’s property? Nope. I think to her it was always just a thimble, and it
wasn’t off-limits to us. Mom didn’t really do treasures so much; perhaps we
kids were enough.)
Stapler, ca. 1955
Zoom in and look closely at the engraving on the base of this stapler: “MADE IN SWEDEN.” That’s how you know it’s old. Now look even closer: there’s a bit of tape just to the right of that which is almost all gone but still clearly says “LEY” and most likely says “ELEY.” That’s my dad’s handwriting and I’m 99% sure the tape, when intact, had my dad’s address, ending in “BERKELEY”—i.e., this is a stapler my dad had in college, at least 60 years ago.
Not only is this stapler likely older than the thimble, but
it’s been in my possession, in continual use, since 1984. My dad didn’t give it
to me—I took it. Every time I look at it I have a queer feeling, just this side
of guilt. I know he didn’t intend for me to have it, but I didn’t care at the
time. I pilfered this stapler out of spite, probably relating to my parents’
divorce for which I held my dad primarily responsible. I felt he wouldn’t miss the
stapler because he never used it. (He was never home.)
It’s an odd concept, “stealing” a household object from a
parent. I simply took the stapler with me from my family home to the condo I moved into with my mom after the divorce. Since then this stapler has traveled with
me to San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, and
Albany. It did cross my mind, during college, how neat it was that this
stapler, having been used by a Berkeley student in the 1950s, found its way
back there to be used by another student in the 1990s. That satisfaction was of
course tinged with the not-quite-guilt feeling I described earlier. I wish I’d
had the rapport with my dad to show it to him and say, “Hey, Pop, if you ever
wondered where your kickass Swedish stapler went, it’s right here. I stole it off
you back in ‘84. And no, you can’t have it back.”
Mug , ca. 1994
I was given this mug in 1995 when I landed a new job (at a company whose logo you can’t see in this photo as it’s around the other side of the mug). Obviously this is the youngest object featured in this collection, but it’s also one of the most fragile. That chip on the rim is recent. I don’t know what’s more amazing: that this mug is still unbroken, or that I’m still at the same job. I would not have predicted either scenario back in ‘95. When my kids begrudgingly do the dishes, they’re very slapdash and clumsy and I fear for this mug’s life. I’m tempted to say, “Be careful! You’re gonna get me fired!”
Hairbrush, ca. 1977
Okay, so this hairbrush isn’t exactly an antique, but it
carries the distinction of being the only hairbrush I’ve ever had. (Before my
mom bought me this brush, my hair was so fine and limp it didn’t need brushing.) I have used this hairbrush
after virtually every shower I’ve taken in the last 40-plus years. It’s been
with me through a dozen households, and untold vacations and business trips.
The opportunities for its loss have been countless.
Now that I’m a homeowner and don’t see any need to ever move
again, it’s tempting to think I’ll have this hairbrush for the rest of my life.
But the greatest risk of its loss comes from my kids. It’s almost comical how
many hairbrushes they’ve gone through. A day doesn’t go by without them hunting
around frantically for a missing hairbrush on their way out the door. It’s also
surprising how many brushes they’ve broken; one brush lasted just a few days.
And despite my telling these girls repeatedly that this is my hairbrush, they borrow it a lot. I’ll find it in the shower, or
their bedroom, or the living room. My younger daughter even brought it to a slumber
party once—that was a close call.
Once my kids reach escape velocity, this hairbrush’s status
as a lifelong possession will be virtually assured. After all, I won’t be using
it that much as my hair steadily retreats toward the back of my head.
Eventually there won’t be enough hair left to brush, and sometime after that I’ll
die.
This is the recently alarming thing I’ve come to ponder
about my possessions: surely some of these will outlast me, such as the boots I
bought awhile back that have an unconditional lifetime guarantee. I don’t have
a problem with my house carrying on without me—after all, it was built long
before I was born, and houses and land aren’t our possessions, not really—but
to think of quotidian objects outlasting me … it’s a little scary. When we buy
something, we expect it to serve us for a time, and then wear out or become
obsolete. Not the other way around.
Only a few years back, during my Everest Challenge days, I’d go through several pairs of road bike tires a year. I’d order a bunch at the beginning of the season and have to re-order halfway
through the summer. Since then I’ve been disheartened at how long a single pair
of tires will last. It’s becoming progressively easier to imagine that, one
day, without realizing it, I’ll mount my last pair, not because I’ll quit
cycling but because cycling, and everything else, will quit me.
If all goes well, by the end I’ll have used up most of my possessions.
My survivors will get my wristwatch, the dandelion paperweight, the silver thimble, and the blue plastic
hairbrush (and hopefully not too many papers with Post-it notes reading, “FILE
LATER”). My daughters will of course have those fancy wooden brushes with the
fabric-backed bristles that make the brush go “whoosh” across your head, so the
hairbrush will have to go to someone’s cat. And that’ll be that.
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