Summer Place - Part Twenty-Four

Summer Place

Part Twenty-Four

            ‘Buyer beware’ should always occur to a purchaser of antiques whenever that ‘they’ plops down disappearing cash and pounds four hours of labor, with the ‘at own expense / at own risk’ clause ‘tied’ to those hours, ‘into’ the venture… ‘too’.  But I did not ‘think of (any of) this’ for I be hardened to the process and that hardness be… a skillful not ‘thinking of (any of) this’.  (?).  So… just what was I… am I… will I… and WHEN I thinking here, there, everywhere about this all anyway?  Were my brain bound light boards… starting to glow?  Showing a glow?  POPPING WITH GLOW?  Did I have a local historical inter-mind fireworks display of old sea captain’s stuff in old… sea captain’s attics?  And barns.

            The barn… at another summer place… is where the chest was found that came from THIS sea captain’s estate (Part Two)… where the …sealed attic crawl space CHAMBER is found… now… too.  That chest was “mine”… sort of.  It had ghosts watching it very closely and these ghosts were… so close that it was easier for I-the-owner to… ‘not think of this’.  This chest WAS in MY barn… with a sheet over it.

            This newly discovered old sea captain’s mansion space; a sealed time capsule, an archival jewel… a historic dig… a ‘peel back the layers of time’… was destroyed by me in an hour and a half… due to the ‘foundation of the trade’ mantra of ‘get the stuff out of there’ ‘NOW’.  Did I know THAT?  Of course… or better titled… ‘of curse’… for THAT be ‘reality’.  “OUT” came all of the ‘stuff found’ in the chamber… “NOW”.

            Into the yard.

            Into the truck.

            Three loads later; ‘all done’.

            And that ‘all done’ included a divvy up as I go professional ism that I cocksured myself  with as the… I… ‘high test’ ‘toasted’ …that site.  I did… ‘do that’ boths; cocksure and toast.

            The chamber by measure is bigger than ‘it (actually) was’.  The roof angle condensed the space to a central ‘around the chimney’ with ‘stuff’ there and ‘at either end’.  The joins-the-mansion end… was stepped down about thirty inches… or a yard … with a wide and three steps below old board ‘down’ where the door entered from the mansion.  Hence, I determined, the kid’s just-inside-the-door freeze up and grab poise at my arrival.  I bandoleered (my verb) ahead of him; down the steps and UP thereafter I PASS the ‘to him’ as much as I could WITHOUT LETTING HIM HAVE …any ‘good stuff’.  This aspect I had to figure out during field combat conditions; the ‘good stuff’.

            That is a:  Not hard to do… for I.

            The chimney with the chamber fireplace was the oldest ‘undisturbed’ part of the site.  Simply… no one had done anything there since… like… 1818.  By that date the new mansion was ‘done’ and the old grandparents; Compass and Sophia… were dead.  (?).  It didn’t matter if I had my dates right because I WAS UNDER FIRE NOW.

            This left ‘the stuff’ at each ‘end’ of the chamber where there were ‘entrances’.  The entrance from the mansion we have discerned.  THIS entrance datelined… ‘sealed up 1936’… behind the wall board to a bathroom.  Therefore last in through that portal was at that date WITH the ‘prior to’ of it being a sort of dump all attic bound stuff (with ‘dump’ actually meaning… maneuvering the joins-the-mansion steps with the ‘put it in the attic’ stuff… so this qualifying the usage AND the actual placing of… stuff… ‘in there’).  The household result was old “where can I put this I-don’t-want-it” from… the old rooms on the second floor… only.  I got that figured real quick for that …crud… gave me PLENTY of ‘make the kid carry it’ stuff… leaving me free to… THE CHIMNEY.

            And the further far end… ‘dumpered’ right away FOR:  This far end ONCE WAS the stairs to and from the original house… now kitchen-summer kitchen-shed… below… but THAT had been ‘closed off’ (meaning the stairs from below was REMOVED… probably during the first 1962 SUMMER PLACE renovation… the when all renovations… began… for it showed a ‘new wood’ boarded up with new floor board finished and… closed up then and made into CEILING from below… with, therefore, whatever was there, near there, around there (the old chamber stair top and stair opening) simply having been ‘pushed back’ and… AND…:  That pushed back stuff was NOT that OLD anyway; sort of ‘about’ Civil War era… and… mostly ‘shed stuff’ (not fine things from the home).

            ARE YOU GETTING THIS?  Because I have ZERO TIME and one crummy barrowed-from-the-contractor light way, way, way ‘up there’ (by the mansion entrance) to ‘see’ therefore ‘get this figured’.  And sorted.  And OUT OF THERE.)  ARE YOU GETTING THIS?

I figured the chimney just fine.  I… fumbled and bundled the back end stairs-are-gone… pretty well.  It was dark there.  Black.  I had the kid A-OK on the mansion doorway but… that stuff ‘ran out’ so I switched him ‘on to’ the “that stuff BACK THERE in the dark I know it’s a bitch”.  So he had to walk by… in the dark… the chimney area that had “ALL MINE” status because I KNEW… and had had a hands on reward of ‘finding’… a teapot that was… I knew… in so, so, so… so… micro second slightest glance was a ‘1760’s creamware Queen’s ware King’s rose decorated colonial English teapot… THAT “had to be theirs”; Compass Parker’s and…. PROBABLY specifically Sophia’s so… THIS (the chamber chimney fireplace area) was a “THEIR STUFF” 18^th century SITE… that I was “MINE” and … AND… “GET IT OUT OF THERE”.  “NOW!!!!!!”.  Get it?

            No bats?

            YES… there were bats… at the rafter’s head.  The kid asked if I heard “that squeaking”.  I ignored that but when he asked again I said “bats” in low tone and shined my tiny flashlight at the rafters to… ‘show movement’.  He didn’t say anything at all and… actually moved right along after that.  Bats can really help me out in an old attic.

            The teapot went in my truck cab by my hand WHILE I ‘balanced’ the kid’s hauling AND the ‘get a grip on this’ AND the…scan for more… treasure.  ANYTHING I found and/or sensed SLIGHTLY to be ‘of that ilk’ (18^th century Colonial era Americana) went ‘truck’.  I ‘meanwhile’ had to scan the piles of the kid’s stuff for any ‘good stuff’.  Too.

            Does anyone care about this?  I AM REMOVING THE ENITIRE CONTENTS of a COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND SEALED UP FOR CENTURIES crawl space chamber AS FAST AS I CAN and the only help I am getting in this ‘AS FAST AS I CAN’ is the inner me ‘what I know’ about setting, site and stuff deployed at… ‘as fast as I can’ rates AND JAMMED into the front cab of my truck to be sure it is on the FIRST LOAD OUT OF THERE.

            “Like the helicopters taking off from the roof tops in Saigon at the ‘end’ of the Vietnam War?”  YEAH:  LIKE THAT.