ancestral booty

Shortly after my sister retired she ran herself into the ground with joy. A celebratory road trip through the hottest part of the eastern U.S. coupled with raising her hand to babysit her tribe of grandkids while their parents took a time out landed her in the ICU with severe dehydration.

In our retirement dreams we pursue passions put on hold during our working years with all the enthusiasm of a twenty-something.  Sadly, our sixty-something bodies lacks the elasticity of our ageless imaginations. We are soon felled by any number of chronic conditions. It’s the relaxation release syndrome; relax enough to begin to enjoy yourself and a parade of ailments show up for the party. Organs lose their rhythm, joints lose their blue book value and if we aren’t sending get well cards to our friends, we are receiving them.

To get ahead of this curve, I’m trying to lose baggage that weighs me down. I figure a lighter load has got to be good for my health. My baggage is a large house full of stuff – my stuff and stuff I’ve inherited from generations that go back to when the Israelites wandered the desert.   Remember, they plundered the Egyptians before they took off for the Promised Land?  I think I have some of that stuff.

Here is a short list of stuff that makes my house look like a museum.

1. An official tile bearing the seal of the City of San Jose commemorating my service as a library commissioner 25 years ago.
2. My grandfather Wolff’s prized textbook, Les Merveilles Celestes, Lectures Du Soir, awarded to him by the Ecole de Garcons in Paris in 1901.
3. Three sets of china and a set of silver, complete with every serving piece known to man, plus a set of crystal I replaced after the last big earthquake and never used.
4. Cast iron cook ware, each stamped with its dimensions, country of origin, intended use and given name: (It’s an 8” skillet for Mr. and Mrs. Wolff, made in the USA.  Sidney is a perfect addition to the family. How can I dump namesake cook ware?)
5. Knickknacks, bric-a-brac, trinkets, curios, gewgaws, collectibles, tchotchkes, dust catchers—the names are as numerous as the vases, plates, small bowls, tea cups, garish incense burners and ceramic birds stuffed in every corner of my house.

Here’s the thing; I want to know how the grandfather I never met earned that prized book. What did my grandmother cook in those iron pots? I only ever saw her light the pilot on her curvy-legged old stove to cook my morning oatmeal when I stayed over.  And who burned incense in that grinning gargoyle? This isn’t just stuff I’m tossing, it’s remnants of a cultural history.

Doubtless our forbears didn’t imagine the day when change would occur so rapidly that our stuff ages out before the paint dries. Our deceased house wares suffer a brief viewing on a thrift store shelf before piling off to their final reward in a landfill. Now that we know our children will not be polite about accepting relics we can’t throw our accumulated goods away fast enough.

The ancestral booty is a tougher toss.