Old New England Glassware in the Home - Part Twenty-Six (B) - "I live here. Leave me alone."

Old New England Glassware in the Home

Part Twenty-Six (B)

"I live here.  Leave me alone"

            As the quality of the materials, of the manufacture and... the monetary cost... of EAPG glassware ‘declines’ and transitions to a decadent yet opulent sewer of a system of “GLASS” “WARE”... the habitat of the ‘early’ EAPG does not

            Do much of anything.

            Glassware did not ‘go’ in the barn.  The shed.  Or the bedroom... of the New England home... except ‘occasionally’.  For the most part, the skimpy and fleeting supply of the ‘early’ EAPG was protectively stored in cupboards on the first floor ‘of the home’.  That is where ‘old New England glassware’ was ‘in the home’.  NOT remarkably it is a ‘still is’ (there) TOO.  It is a sense of its domestic iota that establishes its habitat.

            The first... and finest (antebellum) period of glassware went into cupboards of (New England) homes that were ‘there’ (pre 1835) or, I accommodate, a... ‘just-built-then’ ‘there’ (1835-1860).  These homes were antebellum ‘agrarian aristocracy’ farm houses, sea captain’s mansions and the ‘those on the upper end of Main Street’.  I have referred to these “old” New England homes as we have gone along.  I remind that the homes on upper Main Street (from Part Eleven [C]):

“The me... alone with my art eye... in YOUR great grandmother’s great grandmother’s ...old New England home:  You know those... the white houses on the upper end of Main street that have ‘been there’ ‘forever’ and the ...not enhanced by professional services... exterior (shutters, shrubs, lawn) ‘has been the same like that forever’ AND one never sees ‘anyone’ ‘there’ AND:  Yeah; you know EXACTLY the houses I’m talking about.”

            Including... those farm houses and sea captain’s mansions... too.

            In the home... in the cupboards... is where the old EAPG glassware was.

            Is.

            There was not that much of it; the ‘early’ glassware.  No; not that much ‘in the home’.

            “Oh.”

            That is right.

            When it was not being used it was ‘kept there’ (cupboards).  When it stopped being used it

            Stayed there.  It didn’t need to ‘go’; it didn’t ‘bother’ anyone ‘there’.  And Yankees don’t ‘throw out’.  If an ‘anything’, this ‘early’ EAPG moved slightly to the rear and side edges of the cupboards as ‘NEW’ old EAPG glassware was ‘added’ to the ‘home’.  And:

            These homes were ‘family’

            Homes.

            And:

            No one spent their time counting up old (New England) glassware in the home

            Anyway.

            “Glassware” was understood, at best, as ‘being there’ ‘in the home’.

            Glassware ‘lived there’; in the cupboards.  It was its habitat.  It has stayed that way for nearly two hundred years.

            Now-of-days...

            It is still there.

            Until.

            Washing one’s hair.  Washing the dog.  Washing the car.  Washing the driveway.

            The shutters

            The siding

            The deck

            The... power spray

            Water frolic of life that is the ‘until’.

            When the power spray combs the driveway, those whose habitats are disturbed

            Surry away (“When they get wet they crawl away”).

            I am inside for all that ‘watering’.  I kneel down before

            The open cupboard door.

            IF I HAVE BEEN ‘that lucky’ I am the FIRST ONE to

            View the habitat

            Of the early EAPG “IN THERE”; the YOUR great grandmother’s great grandmother’s.

            You are “late”... I know.  I must hurry.  I close the cupboard door and say nothing.

            I know what I saw.  Were there twelve.  Or just eleven?***

            It doesn’t matter

            At a buck apiece

            Does it.

            Who gets to ‘take them out’; destroy their habitat.  “OH you don’t even know what I’m talking about do you”.  The front goblet; it said to me:

            “I live here.  Leave me alone”.

---

*** :  A...”twelve”... “or just eleven”... Portland (Maine) Glass Company “Loop and Dart” pattern EAPG goblet... set.  Eleven?  “Someone broke one”.  Not me.  I bought them; the ‘eleven’. I...:  She... “No...she doesn’t know”.  ‘Portland glass’ is an... ah...; an ‘ah’... of EAPG.  As the trained eye denotes very quickly it is a ‘Victorian’ pattern; not an ‘Empire’ or ‘Transitional’ EAPG pattern.  So it is ‘later’.  But it is a ‘fine’ pattern; quickly becoming understated to the eye...; becoming a supple ‘Victorian’ ‘elegance’.  Carrying this water-bucket-from-the-well further... is the problem that... the... Portland Glass Company...ware... they made... is of  EXCEPTIONALLY fine ‘glass metal’ quality.  Clarity.  Brilliance, ‘feel’ (heft) and... ‘to the eye’...quality of ‘finish’: just astonishingly consistent persistent exceptionally high-fine quality... held in the hand.  If one handles old glassware (EAPG) it is ‘impossible to miss’.

            And... the loop and dart ‘pattern’ is a ‘their’ (Portland Glass Company’s) “Patented” and signiture pattern... of their... ‘glassware production’.

            And, again, it is supple; Victorian supple.  Too.

            If it was not for the obsessive and persistent brilliance of the glass metal... this ‘it’ would ‘never’.  But... as it is... a Maine made EAPG glassware... it is ...brilliant.

            The part that will ‘bother’ the most... is the remarkable management of how much metal is actually ‘there’.  The ratio of metal is exactly one to one with the supple quality of the pattern... in... the... hand.  Including ‘bell tone ring’ and, again... glass... ware brilliance.  It is a ‘coming together’ of EAPG glassware that, too, due to the ‘supple’ quality... GOES RIGHT BY... most people’s

            EYE.

            How many times do you think I have done that:  Be a ‘the first one’, hear the glassware scream and then

            I

            Destroy the habitat?

            Wouldn’t you like to be the stupid fool STANDING next to me as I

            “UNLOAD” the cupboard.

            Your stupid shoes.  Your stupid feet.  Next to me.

            I set the ‘glassware’ out on the floor beside the cupboard to

            Isolate the ‘lot’

            I bought.

            The feet move away from me as I stand up.

            I go to the next cupboard.

            “Did I turn the hose off?  Willy:  Check for me”.

            The house has been owned by (“in”) the family for exactly as long as the glassware has been in the cupboard bottom... plus fifty years (1806).  They built this front addition in 1822.  The cupboards were built ‘in’ when the dining room was ‘finished’.  “The president of Bowdoin College...”

            And that story trailed off.  I murmured something.  I think.

            “Senatorial race”.

            “A full renovation”.

            OK:  That LAST catches my ears... on either side of the... back... of my head.  My headlamp is shining forward from my head on the ‘glassware’ in the ‘cupboard bottom’.

            I set the lot I purchase out

On the floor

            And close the cupboard door.

            I didn’t leave anything in the cupboards.  I destroyed the entire habitat.  I was very well aware of exactly what I was doing while I was doing it:

            I was ‘very there’ about all of it.

            So what.

            The habitat was destroyed.  I mean...:  I did it.

            “We’re gonna open this up and make it into a breezeway”.  This; the shed, connected the back door of the house kitchen to a summer kitchen and a shed (with ‘crawl space’ above) that led to the barn.

            “He's going to put his shop in down this (left) side and open the rest up to fit his boats in.  That’s the plan.” (for the barn).

            The shed connected with the barn in 1806.  The ‘first barn’ was ‘expanded’ in “1844.”  I couldn’t discern anything that looked ‘expanded’.  I felt they tore the first barn down and built the ‘this barn’.  Actually... I felt... and still feel... that the first barn was a dirt floor shed; not a ‘first barn’.

            It doesn’t matter.

            “We’re keeping the floors but the walls will all be redone.”

            “No.  I’m keeping the cupboards.  Right now anyway”.

            “Isn’t it interesting.  The front part of the house.  The back needs the most work.”

            “We’re gonna just rip the kitchen out”.

            “Bathrooms:  Don’t talk to me about bathrooms”.

            “I think one (a bathroom) can go in there”.

            “There’s a lot of family history still left in here”.

            New... New England?

            The pizza boxes from the (strip mall) pizzeria are set on the

            Granite counter top

            “Of my kitchen”.

            “I already put the (paper) plates and (paper) napkins out on the (dining room) table help your self.”

            “What happened to the cupboards?”

            “We took them out when we put in the window.  They’re leaning up in the barn.”

            “Are you selling them?”

            “I don’t know yet”.

            The destruction of the glassware’s habitat eliminates the need to ‘care of’ EAPG... in the home.  If the glassware is removed and then the cupboards are removed, the habitat of the old New England glassware is removed so ...no one even notices anything is gone and since all that was just, “like”, glassware “anyway”... “who cares”.

            And that is what has happened

            To the ‘old New England glassware in the home’.