Old New England Glassware in the Home - Part Fifteen - "For Safe Keeping"

Old New England Glassware in the Home

Part Fifteen

"For Safe Keeping"

            So I get the salt.  (Part Fourteen, very end)

            And there’s... like... ‘other stuff’... in that cupboard bottom too.

            Yeah like

            ‘Old china’.

            Not your kind:  My kind.  I’m real choosey... about my kind

            Of old china.

            But... ahhhh... I am writing about glassware:

            “Old New England glassware...

            In the (an) (this?) ...home.

            So I will shore that up real quickly.  The... glassware... is just ONE design ...iota... I am interested in... so to speak... in the this... old-houses-including-this-a-home...:  Let me say that ...due to my interests... in design... I do not restrict my myself to a ‘just ONE design... iota.

            I am like a tornado of ‘design interest’ striking an old home?  I have been told that... and the ones saying that ...I... say are ‘good’ (at this too).  Even ‘very good’.  And what you have to say does not count for ... you are... ‘not there’.  So old glassware here is the focus design topic but when I am ‘in setting’ I am... moving very... very.... VERY. VERY fast through... like... a whole lot... of a real lot of... design iota... WITH any and all ‘I like’ “GOOD” “STUFF” going ‘down hatch cover’.  Yeah:  That fast.  So, for example, that salt while ‘in there’ got... it took... like... six seconds; I said ‘two dollars’ they said “Ok”.  Then I ‘did’ (bought) some... old china that was next to it (‘in there too’; the cupboard bottom).  I’m not writing about old china.  JUST GLASSWARE.  An ‘iota’ of design... it is?

            Ok... it’s a BIG iota... of design.  Remember:  Juice Glasses.  I love them.  I mean; look at the goof.  I’m ‘in there’ buying “ALL” (as much as I possibly can find and ‘get’) ‘old New England glassware’ and while I am doing this... they (Eve and Bing) are carrying around crappy 1970’s “ICE TEA” “GLASSES” (a design form?) that they are drinking from... like for real... full of that powdered ice tea mix... ahhhh; yeah;  “WOW”.  You know; with the stainless (steel) spoon that stirs up the ‘powder’ at the glass bottom... AND I had to say no thank you when they offered me “WOULD YOU LIKE SOME” too.  It’s.. the universe and ...beyond.  Hey: why not.  Well... ‘restructure’.

            One.  This is the way it actually is and I am used to it.

            Two.  Yes it is really that way including that they put in fresh mint leaves “FROM”... they said “the yard”... so REAL mint leaves are... plopped into ‘ice tea mix’ ‘in the glass’ WARE.

            Three. This is the way it actually is so therefore

            FOUR.  I have to... ONLY... offer ‘two bucks’ ‘for stuff’ for OTHERWISE, for example, offering a ‘mid value price’ ...on a something that ‘they’ ‘don’t know is... an is’... will create an overload - co2 alarm smoke alarm - set offing “ahhhh...’ and that is worse with ‘more money’ (higher) offers so

            FIVE.  Bury myself in the mud at the bottom using ONLY ‘two buck’ offers for they are

            SIX. What they “think” (THE DARK UNIVERSE) it is and is... “I THINK”... worth

            SEVEN.  (WORTH) “TOO”.

            Don’t worry, you get used to it after the first one hundred times that... and the... only ‘doing that’... “works”.

            SO APPLIED?  Ok YOU are ‘on’ to design and SPY a ‘sweetheart’ New England Sheraton 1825 two drawer sewing stand that “obviously she was given by... her oldest ancestor... “Rev. Doesn’t Matter” and it is in knee-glect off and over in the hallway back there corner so like... YOU know... so... say NO... NO... NO... nothing (to identify ‘it’ as a ‘good antique’) but like... grab and twist and funk with it to like be hearing yourself say  “I NEED THIS FOR MY PLANTS” and “How about twenty bucks” blurts out and

            She sells it and

            You buy it

            And..

            “WOW THAT REALLY HAPPENS!”

            Because ‘the money’ (amount of money) is ‘just right’.

So that’s why I have to spend an eternity of MY LIFE doing ‘just right’ at Eve and Bing's

            BUYING STUFF (first quality old New England decorative arts) for

            That is right:  There is simply no other way to get the job done.

            And it takes a while too for... there is a LOT OF IT ‘in there’.  I mean; all you did (buy) was ONE sewing stand at your ‘knows nothing’ friend’s house.  WHY IS THAT STAND THERE?  Because no one who ‘knows’ has found it yet.  THAT IS THE WAY IT IS.  I would have bought it for less; ten bucks... if I ‘got in there first”.  I’m a picker; an antiques picker.  This is what I do.***

            I am good at it

            Because of my background in design; I study it:  DESIGN.

            Of old New England glassware in the home, et al.

            We have made it back to glassware?  After all of that and Texas too?  Oh don’t worry Texas ain’t going away and I feel sorry for those mint leaves too.  Probably their (Eve and Bing) grandmother planted the mint and

            If I could get away with it I’d dig it up and “SAVE IT” too.  It would probably take me... like... what... six minutes and I throw the clump in the truck bed....:  Yeah... I’ll do it.

            But ahhhh.... PLEASE understand that until the state of Texas arrived with ‘an interest’ in this old New England... property... I figured... as I usually may... that the “CLEAN OUT” of the WHOLE PLACE (property) would ‘come my way’ when the “WE ARE GOING TO SELL the property and... so... I would, as we say in the trade, ‘get’ ‘the contents’.

            But... ahhhh... the Texans... really want it?  So I have to ‘change of plans’ and

            WITH THE ICE TEA, etc.

            I have to strip the place... one... ‘thing’ at a time... even if that means, like, five or six things a minute.

            I can do this pretty fast if I have to.

            So I go after the old glassware.

            Too.

            OK:  Way back at the beginning of this “Mrs. Randolph” (Eve and Bing in Part One) were ...fussing... with their glassware and... us going back there NOW...we may discern that IN AMOUNG that ‘their glassware’... crud... COULD BE a ‘good thing’ (substantive design object in the metal [medium] of [old New England] glass)... OK:  The REST OF IT IS recycle so... THIS is why

            Someone like I

            May studiously overview three eight foot long... holiday table cloth covered... folding tables of the “CHURCH SALE” ‘glassware tables’ and... not touching or motioning or commenting on anything at all until the ‘conditions of sale’ are known...:

            THEN my handy hand ‘picks off’ the good things.

            I pay

            And leave.

            What does not sell... and most of it does not... THEY (the church community) ‘recycles’.  This is ‘one possible end’ of Mrs. Randolph’s ‘glassware.

            “They are twenty-five cents each except for anything you want and those things are two hundred dollars.  Each.”.

            “OH these crafty old church women”... are much sharper at ‘figuring it out’ than...

            The ‘those’ of the Eve and Bing ilk.

            It is a very common... proper... gracious... finger poke from them to I...:  Once, when I was buying a set of six ‘pressed leaf’**** pattern, New England, Boston area, Civil War era ...clear glass... goblets...; the (church volunteer) sales woman:

            She clutched one in each of her hands and said (confided) “THIS IS THE KIND OF GLASS I LIKE.  THE PATTERN ISN’T QUITE BUT... GOOD ENOUGH.”

            “Good enough?” I said.

            “You know.  I know you do.  It’s a little busy”

            I mean... she was dead on right.

            “I like the earlier patterns” she... stepped.  We had eye contact.

            NOW one may tell me anything they want about my behavior at Eve and Bing’s dining room... glassware... sale... but...:

            The old church girl... just cleaned your clock.

            And this does bring us back to the real world of old New England glassware in the home.  The generational passages of ‘home’ ‘contents’ ‘glassware’ in New England... are rooted in the scenarios I have mentioned.  “Rooted” is the word for I... for I depend and expect these glassware roots.  For the ‘not know’ “war crimes” may be a more suited description?

            It depends... on... if...

            You...

            “Blew the old church lady off”... when

            Way back when... SHE...

            In the capacity of your... mother-from-grandmother... tried

            To ‘help you’

            “Dear”.

            I mean... you had to get your crummy delight in juice glasses from

            Not listening to SOMEONE.  Right?

            I didn’t do it. I just show up later and ‘clean clock’ on... YOUR MOTHER did volunteer at the church sales...?  I thought I remember she did.

            SHE HAD A LIFE.

            So did Grammy.

            Rolling her eyes behind your back?  Hey:  It’s not me.  I just buy the glassware from you for two bucks.  If it’s not glassware it’s a sewing stand.  If it’s not a sewing stand it’s an ‘old painting’.  If it is not that... then... ‘old china’

            Grammy knew what old china was?

            HOW DO YOU THINK it ‘got’ into the bottom of the left hand corner cupboard in the dining room?  YOU DIDN’T PUT IT THERE... ‘for safe keeping’.

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**** :  The popular ‘Empire Style’ period practice of... pressing (and drying) collected leaves; collected on excursions from the home... into the outdoors... with the handful clutch ‘brought in’ and ‘pressed’... in a large... thick... old... book... with those leaves often ever after ‘left there’... for now hundreds of years.  I find ‘them’ all the time... in old... large... thick... books... abandoned on floors of attics.  The popular pastime carried through the Victorian era.  Therefore... the noticed ‘pressed leaf pattern’ goblet set ...is an introspective... interwoven... ‘self-look’ at it’s time;  The goblets celebrate... pressing leaves...; a well known activity of ‘back then’ (“The Civil War Era”)

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*** :  Don’t like what you just read?  That’s fine for ‘it’ wouldn’t happen anyway for... one would ‘not know’ that the sewing stand was ‘anything good’ ‘anyway’ so... ‘all that’ will never happen and... I will get the stand for ten bucks... and on the next visit... one (YOU) would never know or notice ‘that it’ ‘was gone’.