(Yankee) Hoarding - Part Seven - "Promised Land"

(Yankee) Hoarding

Part Seven

"Promised Land"

            Summarial Hoard... and I.

            Hope that it has been useful to open and expand the vantage of hoard and carry that expansion over to hoarding and hoarder.  And... carrying this too... to the hoardettes’ finger pointing and witch hunting hoard precept... to demonstrate THAT hoard view... without even a slight suggestion that one alters this last (hoardette view) hoard

Vision plight.  Too.

            No I do not want an adopted crowd forming at now recognized to be vital and/or mature hoard sites especially foisting an “I know” aura upon that site.

            No.

            No.  Just stay in the tacky world of finger pointing at hoard horror.  Drop the ‘Yankee’.  Move out West (west of the Hudson River corridor).  Clean the garage.  Out.  (There is nothing in there that is ‘good’).  Then go away.  I will promise to personally professionally be ‘one of hoard’ in your behalf.  One... is done.

            Go.

            What if a (Yankee) hoard hoarded ‘old clocks’ (“timepieces”)?  Would that?  No.  It would not.  If their alarms all went bong, bong, bong at once would that?  No.  A stupid dance like the car going beep, beep, beep when the key is turned.  If one found fifty-seven old timepieces gathered by one old man quietly over a very fifty-seven years with each stored in its own crude protective box to preserve each timepiece in its ‘as found’ state for the only reason that it assured the hoard that each component of the hoard was carefully included; fairly included; ‘equal to the others’.  This would be a problem right from a ‘get-go’:  “What do ... DO with them”.  A ‘this hoard’?  And one would not think of calling on anyone who would know.  Anyway.  “WHAT is there to THINK ABOUT?  Cleaning up a MESS?”

            That is okay

            As long as one goes

            Away.

            I get to a (all) hoard before the ‘you do’.  I know hoard.  Good hoard.  “Well”.  I get there first.  All the time.  “Boxes of clocks”.  That is an accurate hoard description presented by a hoardette who hastens to ‘clean out’.  “Them” she called... them:  To clean out them, a physical action based on mental evaluation... of a hoard.  “Fine”.  If the whole had been neatly ‘fixed-up’ (restored) and wall hung tick-tocking.  Bonging.  In the front hall, living room, dining room and... the other rooms of responsible (sterile) domestic management, let me say... ‘a different story’.  Yes.  Just nod.  “Yes”.

            These boxed clocks were “stored” (stuffed) all over the outer borderlands of the property.  Each box shut up tight; a ‘put in’ ‘old clock’ and ‘never looked at again’.  I found it a very exciting

            Hoard.

            I did not count the boxes of boxed up old clocks until I stored the full hoard in a section of a warehouse and... sort of had the time to do that to ‘them’.  Before that was too hectic.  Fussy... the family was about ‘getting the house ready’.  For what?  Who cares what idiots do.  Right?  Just nod.  I had to “do” the rest of the hoard too.  What?  You think there was only one hoard in there?  Do you see (understand)?  It is going to be a while before you can do hoard well... too.  I don’t expect you to show up.  I do expect you to be ‘cleaning out’ badly for the rest of your life.  Bricklaying?

            Sort of.  Right?  Hoard is a sort of bricklaying.  You know:  Like making a patio.  With this including “good job” and... “bad job”.

            The vast majority of hoard never makes it to ‘bad job’ or ... ‘good job’ “clean out”.  In most cases good... very good and “GREAT” hoard is not identified as, even, being hoard.  For example, on property ‘walk through’ tours, I am often shown a “collection”.  In most cases this would pass toward ‘accumulation’ and never come near a ‘collection’.  Behind ‘accumulation’ is the safer... border land:  Hoard.  What ever it is (‘old clocks in boxes’, for example)... it is... actually.... hoard.  Is it good hoard... or bad hoard?  Grand hoard or piss poor hoard?  Yes... girls... skip rope and... skip rope with the girls?  Boys?  This is why one is not there.  To be of ‘go away’ is the easiest hoard solution.  Yes; “cool” and “pretty much of a problem” isn’t it; ‘hoard’?

            Have I gummed this all up for you?  Or have I suggested and shown that (Yankee) hoard is one of the grand treasures; alternative asset allocations, of old New England?  And do I care what you ‘think’... about (Yankee) hoard.

            Well... for the last I don’t.  My ‘nose’ for hoard has me scampering around the (Yankee) borderlands perpetually (an inexhaustible supply of hoard).  And, simply, no one is there except the those-of-one-with-hoard and

            The confused... hands thrown up in despair... maelstrom trapped hoard swirl ‘victims’ of ‘hoard’.  Yes:  There we go... ‘victims’ of ‘hoard’.  In Yankee New England.  That makes everyone feel better about (Yankee) hoarding:  Victims.

            If this force has its way... all of the old worn ‘wide board’ pine floors of (Yankee) New England... will be sanded.

            Varnished.

            And shown off.

            All after “THE PLACE” is “CLEANED OUT” (“You wouldn’t BELIEVE what it was LIKE in there.”).  It was a good thing I moved all of those fifty-seven boxed up old clocks out of that ‘place’.  I, removing hoard, rescued ...victims.  The place was cleaned out.  The floors have been sanded

            Varnished

            And shown off.

            I was invited on a ‘house tour’ “TO SEE”.

            I didn’t go.

            I have written... in this blog... two long stories about hoard... with these stories never mentioning hoard or I... ever saying ‘hoard’.  They are both vast stories recording singular work (antiques dealing / rare book dealing) events that I actually did AND consider these to be... representative enough... to make a point of

            Being worthy to be told?

            Did I make a mistake doing that; recording the tales?  Not really

            I guess.  Who cares?  Right?

            This last is particularly adroit when one such as I confounds that this (Yankee) hoarding will never be ‘made out’ anyway.  Your in-battle (hoard battle) will never take place.  You will attend no hoard war.  No fight on the front line of a ‘big one’ (a Yankee warship of multiple layered hoard).  You will not be the ‘broom clean’ at the ‘empty’ end.

            In the first story; “The Crows Nest” (44 chapters/posts), the hoard is antiques with multiple hoard... multiple hoard locations, settings and ... multiple hoard ‘alternative asset allocation’ managers.  (Yankee) hoard interweaves with (Yankee) hoard.  It lives, it moves, in (Yankee) New England.  The story is about very large moving hoards; almost too big to be discerned as hoard.  But that is what all of ...it... is; hoards.

            The second story; “Can B. Worth” (37 chapters/posts), is a ‘rare book’ story that is an ‘inside hoard’ vantage.  “He dies in his hoard”.  For real.  It is a story about hoard and it’s fight against the ‘sanded floor’ people... from the inside hoard vantage.  Again this tale is, too, ‘almost to big to be discerned as hoard’.  But it is that: (Yankee) hoard.

            At first contact with the hoards of these tales, and through my whole relationship, I understood these ‘tales’ are (Yankee) hoard.  By the time I arrived at the hoards in the tales... I knew hoard very well.  For an example of my formative exposure to hoard, I suggest the much less cumbersome story; “The Codman Place” (7 chapters/posts).  That is a splendid story of how I came to hoard; the many hoards ‘in there’ and the nuance of each hoard... from when I was very young at this (Yankee) hoard.   Too.

            For the final closure, it should be obvious... but I must speak of it:  Yes I am a hoarder.  That is... I am ‘of hoard’.  Particularly... ‘of (Yankee) hoard’.  And I am very good at it.  Well practiced.  So well practiced that one would ‘never know’.  And that is the way it is supposed to be; the way (Yankee) hoarding... is.  I live in hoard.  I will die in hoard.  The ‘sanded floor’ people are the enemy.  They are of little consequence... except to themselves, of course.  That ‘they’ have closed out ‘hoard’.  Themselves.  “Sterile” visions is a ‘their best’.  No fifteen years of old seed packages for they have no (messy-self made) garden.  No hoard of shoes because the... accumulation... of their shoes are ‘too cheap’ (of quality and cost... in addition to, too, NOT being ‘Yankee footwear’) to be worthy of the title ‘hoard’.  It is a sad omen when one cannot even accomplish a hoard of shoes.  But that is the way those (“new New England”) people like it; sand the floors then varnish them.

            Admire them.

The Codman Place - Part Seven - "Forever"

The Codman Place

Part Seven

"Forever"

            We took the loads across town to “the barn” and this was a considerably shorter drive except when we had to “swing around by” the “gas & go” on the way back.  At the barn my mother and grandmother made us unload at the front this time and they’d start sorting right there and dividing the stuff up into the barn and their cars.  These were parked out front.  They didn’t sort the way that they did across the river.  Here they pretty much took everything out of the trunks and boxes and took all of that except a few things back into the barn.  Those few things went in the cars.  The empty trunks and boxes were piled off to one side outside the barn door… except for certain selected trunks and boxes that they said were “too good”.  I got pretty good at knowing a “too good” one for not only did it look the “real old” when we carried it out of the attic but most of the time my grandmother would say “put that one over here” when we unloaded it.  “Over here” was back inside the barn door by a little room she kept locked.  It was open most of the day but it was locked when we left that night.

            And night it was.  Ant never said a word about it but it was getting dark before we locked up the house and …finished taking all the boxes and trunks outside the barn over to the barn across the river like my grandmother told us to.  Ant always seemed to know what we were doing and when we left the barn for the last load across the river he said he’d bring me back and “It was a good day:  Went real well” and how it was good to “get that behind us”.  My grandmother told him we’d “work it out tomorrow” and… that was that for when we finished the last load he just dropped me off without “stepping in” like he usually did.  It was dark then and the lights were on in my grandmother’s dining room.

            She made me get undressed in the shed as usual and made me “YOUR SO DIRTY” take a shower right away.  When I went through the dining room I saw they had the table all covered with old papers that I guessed they’d fetched out of the trunks.  My mother and grandmother were looking at ‘em; piling them up and trying to read different parts of them.  Both of them had their glasses on and were stooped in-under the light above the dining table, holding the old papers.  There was no problem knowing they were real old papers; anyone could see that.

            The next morning was where it really came true to me (and it has been true to me ever since over all these years) about how… when one “breaks up an estate” one sort of “lives” “the family” for a while.  Once they had all those papers… which were from the Bateman family just like they’d figured, my mother and grandmother pretty much didn’t shut up about that family for the next three months.  Everything was “Bateman” this or that.  And all the other names too like “Pricilla”, “Anna”, “Comfort” or “Willie”, “Enoch” or… “Briney”.  The last “drowned at sea” they always said.  On and on they’d go about who was that, whose that was, why this was and then is that, who that this was why and the “this should be” “therefore”.  It was just a little strange then but NOW it is such a normal thing that I really relish it.  What happens is you have so much of a “family” in an “intact estate” that their whole timeline eloquence just spills out on to everything.  This is furthered by there being no regulation or guide lines about the “processing” or examination of the estate; it’s the “let’er rip” method.  This makes professional archivist cringe but HELL I never see them in no “house” “clean ‘en out”.  And that’s the gap I’ve yet to see… rectified.

            But my grandmother and mother knew how to rectify an “old place”.  They just rolled in it.  I now know that any dealer worth a salt shaker rolls in it… to the best of their abilities too.  Pretty much “anything” that “is” part of what ever is determined to be the “core” of the estate is “squirreled off” to be “looked at” “later”.  And this “later” can be, for example, twenty years.  What’s left is the “dog barf” with a few “select additions”.  The core contents then is “worked on” VERY carefully for …decades… for…. by “piecing it out” “slowly” one can “live off of it” “for years”[1].  Also… and going back to those papers on the dining room table that night… there is a certain internalized voyeurism explored by many dealers when “handling” “an estate” that takes years to “finish researching”.  This is especially true if the estate has “something going on” as for example here when there is a “clutch” of “Revolutionary War” “stuff”.  But in these days that was all “new” to me.  And Ant; he didn’t ever really “get it” but, ah… he always said how he “didn’t school” “much” and how, when he worked with my grandmother she’d always “prove him” how much it “cost him”.  Then he’d tell me about how to stay in school and how he remembered how my uncle “went to college” and “how smart” “your mother is”.  And all.

            Now… that day in the attic… I, right off, took the house shaped box with the War of 1812 woodcuts pasted to it and …demanded to keep it.  My grandmother didn’t fight that but… she did look through all the papers inside the box and… only took a few out … but said “not to loose any” of the rest she left.  I didn’t.  I’d take those out one by one for years and…well; stare at them and then… carefully put them back.  The were mostly mid and second half of the 19^th century color lithographed advertising cards and pamphlets, some almanacs and a bunch of little tiny cards with people’s names on them.

            After that attic clean out… there was not much to do… one would suppose… especially if you were twelve years old doing what other people told you to do.  “LOOKS CLEAN TO ME!” was my assessment and… I stood by to “help Richard” and all TOO but …no one had seen him… AND

            Was I ever wrong.  Today, thirty plus years later I know how to WAIT for just this moment in an “S-state” (S-state) for back then I’d be just LIKE ANYONE would be:  “IT’S EMPTY”.

            AND IT AIN’T.  Not even a long ways there to be an “empty” by my grandmother’s standards.

            But she got “the keys”.  That was because Richard and the …anyone else… decided by themselves TOO that …the Codman Place… “was empty” NOW.  So… in his words, my grandmother… “could HAVE anything” “else” “she wanted”.  That friggen bitch “wanted” TRUCK LOADS “out of there” “still”.  And she got ‘em… for free.

            There was one exception to this moment of conveyance of “the keys”.  Richard DID appear after, evidently having been well aware all along what we’d been doing (I guess he’d “come in” after we left in the evening) and we ALL did a “walk through” the main house together and the …shed, the little building by the shed and the barn… . And… all stood around just inside the barn door pointing to the this and that’s and “off to the side” and… more pointing and NO ONE GOING a God damn STEP into that barn… and… “Huh.”.  I said that to myself because the more I stood there saying nothing and listening the more I could “still see” “stuff” that “I knew” my grandmother was “gonna take”.  So:  “Huh.”

            But that isn’t what happened right then because… .  Well… WHEN we “walked through the basement of the house it was pretty damn empty to everyone’s eyes except that genuine World War II helmet of Richards… which he took down from it’s nail and carried along with him without making ANY comment and no else saying anything and the only person I seemed to think see all that was ME and since that was that then …that was that.  Right?

            While we were just inside the barn “talking” Richard would roll that helmet around in his hands just about in my face so… let’s just say I …knew where that helmet was and figured I knew where it was going.  That shrine to his brother had all been moved out piecemeal I’d come to understand and … at the new house it hadn’t been “allowed” “inside”.  Richard had stacked it all up in the trunks and boxes in about half of what was once a harness room inside the barn[2].  Remember them friggen “harness rooms” when you stare at the outside of an old barn.  This is the second time in just this story where one sees their current incarnation.  The first time is that “room” that my grandmother locked up everyday at HER barn.  If one combines the two uses one will note that… in most cases… those rooms, being sealed up, dry, modestly well lit by natural lighting and… “clean”… are …preferred treasure trove storage vessels by… many a Mainer who’s “GOT A BARN”, got “something good” and “needs a place to put it” “that’s safe”.  Pay particular attention to ‘em if… they are “locked”.  I figure the helmet was going to be the “hung up” “in there”.

            Just about the last moment of this seemingly innocuous and idle chit-chat that included that “HAVE ANYTHING YOU WANT” enunciation that I now know how to wait for like a clenched clawed rapier of … hawk sitting in a tree top watching the chicken pen door at dawn… Richard turn his gawk suddenly down on me and handed UP the helmet on to the top of my head saying “HOW” I “SURE EARNED IT” and I “WAS A BETTER HOME FOR IT” then his head and it would “GIVE” me “SOMETHING TO REMEMBER THE HARD WORK WITH”.

            Remember the hard work with?  This was work?  Ant was smiling.  I was …blinded by the helmet being down over my eye’s.  My mother was doing the “SAY THANK YOU” crap.  AND…from then on it was my helmet and I had that steel bucket with it’s camouflaged covering and “liner” around for the next decade of my life… until…after the Vietnam War protests were over and all… and it became… obsolete to my life and…well…:  I assume I “sold it” along the way then.  AND I DON’T wish I had it back but at the time I was as happy as a… WHAT DO YOU CALL a twelve year old kid whose filled his room(S! for I got … “more space” out of ‘em for MY stuff too) full of “authentic” relics of one’s own DISTINGUISHED selection process that PROVED that “the stuff they keep” “ain’t” “as good” as “WHAT I KEEP”:  “WANT TO SEE A REAL WORLD WAR II HELMET?  I got it from a guy who drove a TANK!”.  Got it?

            So that aced me for the rest of that day and wasn’t until the next day …at dawn… when Ant and I were in the yard of the “Codman Place” with my grandmother that “we” found out just “HOW MUCH” “was left” “to go”.  It was raining… real hard.  “We’ll start in the barn.” said my grandmother.

            I thought we’d “done the barn” pretty good.  The “upstairs” was empty to my eye.  The downstairs had all been the “gone through” and Richard had got all his “tools” “out”.  There WAS this big terminal moraine of “trash” to be “thrown out” that my grandmother had made us make down one whole side of the center of the barn next to the stalls[3] and… it WAS TRUE that here and there… in the harness rooms and stalls and the wood shed and the back pens and… well… all the “over there” too… there, after all… “is” “quite a bit”.

            “Huh”.

            That was, again, uttered to myself because my grandmother had already told Ant to “take” “all that (trash)” “to the barn (across the river).  All that?  In the rain?  We DID, all day long and … it’s true… that it probably DID look like we were taking it to “the dump” because THAT WAS the way one DID GO to go to the dump and… as it was …raining… we didn’t “see” “anyone” the whole day.  Except for Evelyn at the Gas & Go who said “AREN’T YOU FINISHED YET” to Ant who said how my grandmother was “making sure” it was “clean”.

            “Clean”:  That… “S-state” was CLEAN like you’d be CLEAN if … my grandmother bare-assed you and … soaped you and… wire brushed you… and… tossed you’s the stark naked right out in YOUR OWN front yard.  IT TOOK FIVE MORE DAYS to “get it” “clean”.

            By the time… I’d finished carrying the… old floor boards, formerly THE floor of one of the first floor rooms during …the 1820’s…, down from the attic floor where… they’d been laid on top of the actual attic floor… and no one would have ever noticed ‘em except my grandmother… and out to the truck… to… “driv ’em cross the riv-ah”, stacked ‘em in that barn and…:  Ant claimed he knew they “were there” but I see’d ‘im slid his foot on them dust covered boards when my grandmother first started to talk about their impending exodus and then… look off across the empty attic to denote just how far over they did go… .  WE was PRETTY WELL DONE THEN.  But that was the five days later.  The first day was that rainy day with the “trash”.  AND…as I recall…; the intention of this story was to relate as to how I found my first “rare book” that I knew was a rare book when I found it.  SOME time it’s been since I mentioned that!  THAT’S because I’s ah had to “background” you so’s you’s can appreciate HOW a little crap like me COULD find a rare book.

            WE took that “trash” “out”.  It then became an awareness to me that… considerably more than I’d… considered… “was left” “in the barn”.  TRUCK LOAD after TRUCK load was left in there but one would ah never know’d it for… it was not only “dark” in there but I guess the word that is best deployed is that is was “compressed”.  NOT TO BE SEEN in the now “open” interior of the “old barn” was, particularly on the first floor, THIRD FLOOR and the odd little fourth floor that was only across the “way back” of the barn… a startling amount of “stuff” “there”.  My grandmother knew damn well it was there.  She also knew that MOST of it came from that Bateman estate “from down to”[4] Brooksville.  “STUFF THERE” it were… WAY UP IN THE BACK… in boxes (19^th century wooden boxes) that be the “full of” … the “old stuff” from, evidently THAT old house.  These had been moved to the Codman Place… about… maybe… the 1920’s but… it became evident, had in most cases actually been “packed” in the MID 19^th century and moved “here” “unopened”.  But I was too stupid then to comprehend this and the merit of this.  My grandmother was not.

            ALL of this residue went directly to the cross-town barn and… the whirlwind of my mother and grandmother laid them boxes empty and stacked up JUST about as fast as we brought them in there.  “AND EVERYTHING ELSE” too.

            This last was “SHE’S NUTS” level removal.  Ant said that.  This is because she had him in under one of the stair cases in the barn with a crow bar ripping off a board to “get at” “the stuff” in-under that stair.  He’d “never seen that” he admitted, particularly as it…; “the stuff”, was “obviously good” once exposed.  Pieces, bits, scraps, sections and every damn stick, board end, metal scraps and… for a bibliognoste… “ALL PAPER” “was taken” “out” and … “saved”.

            It was during this phase that I acquired my rare book.  In general, the requirement was, once a space was perceived to be empty, to “go over it again” (and again) paying particular attention to the darkest, most “in-under” areas, loose boards, possible “space behind that” hiding places, dusty corners…, old little piles of hay and any …pile that could not be clearly answered as to “What’s under it?”, ALL the “old firewood” piles…, the stall and pen corners, floors, ceilings…., ALL beams and beam “tops”, “crotches”, ALL window frames… and… on & on & on until FINALLY my grandmother, HERSELF, stopped “finding” “more”.

            What happened was … that there really was “stuff” all over in the dust and dirt of the floors.  And I was going along up there with the flashlight and there was this flat square that looked like a board.  It was all covered with dust and had been stepped on and bent a little it looked like “nothing” but… “I was suppose to” “get it” so… I picked it up and even though completely dirty I saw is was “a book” right away and I opened it up and shined the flashlight on the first page and

            SAW the date of “1795” with a printed “picture” of a United States eagle in a circle… and… I KNEW THIS was “good”.  It was, to be precise, a small bound folio; bound in first half of the nineteenth century half calf and orange marbled paper covered boards with the “KENNEBECK (sic) INTELLIGENCER” on the spine in gilt…, retaining “a run” of this… the first newspaper published in Augusta, Maine… beginning with …the first (Nov. 14, 1795) issue and continuing through September 1800 when it “stopped”[5].  It was dirty on the outside, clean on the inside, bent, bowed, big for a book, sort of thick and … “MINE”.  The date and that eagle did it.  The rest “was nothing” except of course it was an “OLD NEWSPAPER” (“DATED FROM THE EIGHTEEN HUNDREDS SEE!”).

            I didn’t have any problem passing that through the “artifacts found today” inspection committee who looked at it in the cab of Ant’s truck where I put it.  They said it was “nice”.  And nothing else.  Ever.  So I had it.  For years.  In my room.  And I KNEW it was good… all the way through high school.  I’d occasionally look at it, show it to some kid and “try” “to read it”.  I’ve never been able to “READ” an old newspaper; I’m too superficial to bother to understand what the people were writing about.  BUT with that date and that eagle… IT WAS MINE.  Then one day after I’d graduated from high school and was either “going” or “was going” “to college”… this… and I remember this clearly but only sort of spot clearly… this… MAN came to “the house”.

            And this man…; he went on & on with everyone about everything and… in that on & on was “any old PRINTS?”.  Well:  I had an “old prints” that I’d “saved up” from “getting in” to places.  And… one of them old prints of which this man singled out just like YOU pick the largest piece of CAKE for yourself… was of … a building in Portland that … I’d found and “kept” because it was a certificate for …making the best “Hooked Rug” at some “exhibition” there… in the 1830’s (?).  So I showed it to him.  And he followed me along with it to see the “ANYTHING MORE?” in one of my rooms.  And… he, once in there, seen that folio and went all over it real calm like… along with the real calm too about that print.  He was orally the on & on the whole time AND being “with” “a museum” “in “PHILADELPHIA” too… .  Then he’d said the “like to buy those” and the “HOW MUCH” and I drew the old bow string WAY BACK in my mind of highest number possible and… he said “OK” right away, paid cash and was GONE… with them two selections from my stocks… forever.

The End

---

[1] :  I’m still “finding” “stuff” I “bought out” of “estates” a quarter of a century ago.  That stuff “looks pretty good” too.

[2] :  It was “still there” twenty years later when I “bought it” after he died but… I denoted… “some dealer” had “gone through it sometime” in the interim score of years.

[3] :  You’s got the balls to be’en a dealer?  Let’s just find out.  Would YOU be the one… during a “clean out” to… “the THROW out” something “obviously good” knowing that YOU BE the one to actually THROW OUT the “throw out” by simply and eventually going to throw out that “throw out” WHERE YOU WANT IT… thrown out?  HUH?  TRY IT and see how you do:  Take an “IT’S GOOD” and, along with a considerable more choice selections (like a big ole 19^th century oil on canvas with a ship on it but having a slash hole the size of your forearm across that “in the original frame” canvas to it too) and… bury it… in the “throw out” “pile” and “wait” “until the end” and… do the “I threw it out”.  My grandmother; she taught me that and it works… and… you’s just wading along in the clean out and them; “the principals”, off times will come up with the “something” they “found” and “want to know” if “it’s good” or should be the “thrown out”.  YOU just the “throw it out” to ‘em know’en fool’s ass well it be “good” and… into and DEEP UNDER that pile it go until it’s “gonna throw that trash out today” TRUCK LOADS “don’t worry it’s all going to the dump” YOURS “for free”.  Let’s just find out if you’s ah got them “the BALLS” to “be’en a dealer” with all them “fine & rare” “decorative arts” (and… “old books”).

[4] :  If you’s practice “from down to” and the “include it” in your familiar utterances more frequently then you’s do now… (“Where YOU been?” “I’s from down to the bathroom”… “from down to the computer room”, “from down to the shed” or “from down to the… ATM machine”…), you’s be the “get along” to the understanding it’s meaning and correct use.

[5] :  It “stopped” because Peter Edes, the editor & publisher, started a “new” newspaper; the “KENNEBEC GAZETTE”, “Vol. 1, No. 1”… then.  I found a… “complete run”… thus …but I didn’t and… never did know this.

The Codman Place - Part Six - "I Just Grabbed"

The Codman Place

Part Five

"I Just Grabbed"

            My grandmother and mother “owned it” (the estate contents) and were to the “getting it out”.  They knew how to “not show” “interest” so “go-ud” that THEY KNEW to sit it back and… wait.  JESUS didn’t I learn that from a table talk like that.  The crux of the whole was “the attic” where … “old Henry’s” WIFE’S “family things” “be”… except for “THOSE TRUNKS IN THE BACK OF THE BARN” “BE TOO”… .  This …block of merchandise… in that attic space… was denoted as the core of the estate.  NOT a friggen NOISE to anyone was uttered about that attic for… A DAMN WEEK.  It was understood that old Henry’s wife “was a Bakeman” from “down Brooksville”.  That’s way UP the coast by Castine.  “Anna” or “Susanna” or “Christina” or well… if your twelve and Maine genealogy is the topic at “dinner”… you’s bored so… I didn’t ever catch it all.  ANYWAY… that family was “hers” so that was “their family things” all up in the attic.  I did consolidate as to how that family was “fought in the Revolution” but… no one seemed to know much about the “battles” I hallucinated they were “in”.  In actual fact I know now that the …big battle they “FOUGHT” was with their Tory neighbors who kept trying to loot their home and mill.  But that don’t mean anything to this story except to note that their side “won” so… that a lot of “Bakeman things” remained “together”.  And they were up in that attic.  And my grandmother & mother knew this.

            So what they did is never go near that attic for a week.  Never mentioned it.  Never said a word about it.  It was always “clean out” that, “move this”, “take that today”, “get as much of” in a specified… either “room” “area” or… “floor”.  The last was toward the “end”.  One would think that an “end” means an “END” and that means “WE ARE DONE” and ..we don’t “do this” “anymore”.  It doesn’t.  I learned this.  It is a false end; a created “end” constructed… by my grandmother and… for years, a tactical directive employed with stunning success by… me.

            What it means… is that the “estate” in the “home” of the former owners is “DONE” in THEIR notion of what “DONE” is to THEM.  And… they, therefore, “don’t need to come” “anymore”.  The wife really never came anymore ever.  But Richard did for the first week and a little longer.  The little longer was crucial but after that… he was pretty much what he said:  “MOVED OUT”.  After the first three days of hard hauling out of the barn; principally from the second floor for Richard hadn’t “got his tools” “ready”.   AND in fact… there weren’t all that much ON that first floor “except in the back rooms” that my grandmother cared about anyway… :  We were “directed” to “work” “in the house”.  THEN my grandmother would show up every day first thing in the morning and give us very specific direction of what and WHERE to move that what in… direct collaboration with… Richard.  She’d also “come by” after “dinner” each day to “check”.  In the main house pretty much “everything” was going to some place.  “THAT” goes “WITH THAT” to “THEIR HOUSE” but “TAKE ALL THAT TO THE BARN”.  Got it?  It went right by me but… since the work was easier and cleaner then the barn I rode right along and … Ant spent a whole lot of time packing “it” on the truck “so it won’t get scratched” kind of stuff.  We used these old quilts from the barn that my grandmother said “USE THOSE” to us.  Funny how when those got to the barn across the river she wouldn’t let us take ‘em back and we had to “GET SOME MORE.  OUT OF THE HOUSE IF YOU HAVE TO”.

Then one morning:

            “WHY IS IT… THAT when people move out of a house they will not let anyone SEE what they are moving?” came to my ears as an odd query from a woman with a man in a pick-up truck that stopped so as to block Ant’s truck that we had just finished loading.  Ant said again that “It weren’t your business” what he “moved”.  The woman persisted.  The man in the truck said nothing.  The truck blocked our passage.  I stood behind Ant, at the front of our truck.  Richard was not at the house.  We had just locked the house.

            “We’ve got to be off” said Ant to the woman.  She looked back to the truck again.  Ant had intercepted her when she had stepped out the passenger side of her truck.  He said “Oh shit” and walked right out to her.  Once out of her truck cab she had walked down the little driveway and then walked down even faster when she saw that Ant was going to reach her before she reached our truck.  They’d talked briefly and each of them had gestured toward Ant’s truck several times.  After a few of these gestures I’d gotten out and just stood between Ant and the truck.  I heard Ant say “You can follow me all you want.”.  He came back to the truck giving me a rather hard “Get in”.

            Then he launched into a paragraph of linked profanities that, while he watched the pick-up follow us out across the river in his side mirror, made it clear to me he knew who the people were, that they were antiques dealers, that he did not like them, that this was trouble for everyone and that… when we got to the barn he sure hoped my grandmother was there because “she’d put her head up her ass”.

            My grandmother was there and …according to Ant… that’s what she did.  I didn’t see that because I was at the back of the barn with Ant unloading and my grandmother and mother “took ‘em on” way up outside of the front of the barn.  Ant stopped up there and honked his horn when we arrived.  The other pick-up had pulled right in behind us and when my grandmother saw that she came right up.  Ant spoke to her something using no profanities from the truck and she said she’d “take care of it” and to “go unload”.  My grandmother talked for a little while outside the barn with the woman who’d gotten out of her truck when we stopped and tried to walk down into the barn.  She never made it.  My grandmother held her off and my mother stood just back enough to block her again if she flanked my grandmother.  “Don’t she TWIST!” is what Ant said to me while we worked.  I didn’t see any twisting but that was probably because I was unloading while Ant spent most of his time watching.  When the lady left, Ant went right up and talked with both my mother and grandmother for a little bit.  When he came back I was all un-loaded except for the big stuff.  We unloaded that and drove back for another load.  Ant said the lady “won’t be back” and how she’d “met her match” with my grandmother.  We stopped at the “gas & go” on the way back and not only did Ant buy me an ice cream bar but he even told fat Evelyn all about my grandmother and what he called “That fuck’en bitch”.  My vocabulary was getting bigger everyday I worked with Ant.

            Back at the house we’d come to a point where I was suppose to “work with Richard” in the shrine.  But since he hadn’t shown up like he was suppose to, Ant had said we’d “strip the basement” and that’s what we’d been doing. I knew now how we took “everything” so we’d already taken three truck loads out there through a wooden doorway that lead down into it from the outside.  Throughout the taking everything I had my eye on that helmet.  Ant saw this and, as the space became “empty” he said to me quietly that “we’d better not” take “that”.  In fact he actually said we’d better not even touch it.  So we didn’t and after the fourth load that was all that was left down there.  It hung there, on it’s nail, from the ceiling, at the base of the stairs.  I didn’t like leaving that there but what could I do.

            The next morning my grandmother came down to the house and looked it all over as usual.  Ant went around with her but they made me “take everything” out of this little shed by the barn and put it into the truck.  That pretty much filled the truck.  Then my grandmother said a “Well” and then that I “should stay here” for when “Richard showed up” and Ant to take that truck load to the barn and come back.  We, I then gathered, were supposed to meet Richard this morning.  But he didn’t show up.

            While Ant was gone we went upstairs and “walked through”.  While we did this my grandmother would find little things still[1] and make me “Put that in the car.” so I was running up and down and in and out the whole time.  When I came back upstairs for the “five hundredth time” my grandmother weren’t there but… the attic door was open.  So up I went.  I knew for sure she hadn’t even been up here since that first day.  When I came up she didn’t say anything or touch anything and just walked up and down the isle peering in at the dark boxes and trunks.  Then we both heard a truck and, even though I could tell it was Ant’s truck, my grandmother said “Maybe this is Richard”.

            It wasn’t but we went all the way down and outside before Ant was turned around.  Ant said “HE AIN’T HERE YET?” and my grandmother affirmed that.  In hindsight its clear this absents phased neither of ‘em but at the time I thought they both might get… well, “mad”.  They didn’t.  My grandmother said to Ant that we’d “just been in the attic” and she “guess” we “should do that today”:  “Get it all out.  As fast as you can.”  Ant seemed to understand that.  He also seemed to understand that her telling him to “take it all” to the “regular” barn; the second barn, was nothing unusual although I’d “never done that” “this way”.  She also said to “be ready” “to move it from there”.  “To where?” is what I asked myself but I didn’t dare say anything out loud.

            From there on the rest of the day was “BOOM”.  That day was sort of cool and cloudy but I still remember the sweat we got going up and down those stairs.  And that wasn’t the end.  Ant didn’t ever say anything but I noticed that all that day we seemed to “go at it” at a faster clip then usual.  It started out with one load being normal.  Then, with the second load, we seemed a little faster.  By dinner time, my mother had these sandwiches at the barn and they talked about “working right through” “today” which we did.  Ant never said a word to complain and we still did get the “ice tea” in the afternoon but we didn’t talk with Evelyn hardly at all.

            We started at the top of the stairs and went down one side to one end of the attic, then back up the whole other side and then finished up from the other side of the stair top.  This last section was eased off by us “taking something” from it to “fill out” a load on each trip.  I was usually sent back up to “just get anything” “about that big” “you can carry” and, well, I “just grabbed”.

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[1] :  Unbelievable this then but today it is my most regular habit.  Pieces of wood, metal and glass whatever’s; bits & parts, “slivers”, “that is that”, “iota”, “any paper” and the always proud “DIDN’T EVEN SEE THAT” “discovery” of something actually whole and “good”.  She took every damn thing there was and was repeatedly searching out more and more… AND MORE.  NOT a nook, cranny, beam top, dark spot, hole, crack, “back in under the shelf”, “Here: shine the flashlight in there”, “check between the (blank)”, “look behind and up-under” a (blank), “see if anything is just below” the (blank)” or “go get a hammer and pull that out” actually nailed down “something”… escaped.  And I learned to do this too.  And you should TOO.

The Codman Place - Part Five - "Minor Antiques Problems"

The Codman Place

Part Five

"Minor Antiques Problems"

            My Grandmother, who kept telling everyone what to do whenever anyone of us stood still for even a second in her sight (this quality seemed to be especially in use on me), kept right on me about what to “move” when “Richard leaves”.  The problem with that was, as near as I could tell during… the first three days… that I “cleaned out” “the barn”… not only did he not leave but he DIDN’T DO ANYTHING EITHER.  Anthony (“Ant”), who was driving the loads for my grandmother said that was all he ever did anyway.  He had a bad side to Richard the whole time we moved together.  He said he was a “lazy piss” and I remember that to this day because that kind of talk was just being introduced to me and:  I remember also how Ant explained “You know how when you piss’en over the bank of the river but your look’en OFF over the river and not where your piss’en” as to how THAT was a “lazy piss”.  I don’t think I’ve ever pissed over the bank of a river ever again without thinking about Ant saying that to me.  I’d never thought about it till then but he was right about that kind of piss.  I still don’t know if he was right about Richard.  It seemed to me that Richard, especially at first, was watch’en everything I moved like a hawk.  Just because he didn’t help us didn’t mean he wasn’t doing something even though Ant was right that he wasn’t doing “ANYTHING” to help us.

            I would ride with Ant to this barn across the river that my grandmother knew the people and had ‘em give her an “OK”[1] to use …what proved to be a pretty sharp hiding hole for her plunder.  That barn had a big ole front door that we would drive in.  We had a whole left side all the way down that was empty to “drop” our loads in.  We were instructed to drive all the way down to the end at the start and “drop” as “FAR BACK” as we could and “pack it in tight”.  Ant seemed to know what my grandmother wanted because he was always very careful to be sure that everything was stacked right up tight even though it seemed to me there was enough space to play football in that barn.  We had that side for only a month (this being the end of June) for that space, a ground floor, was for “the late hay” that the owners “cut & sold out” “in the winter”.  So… what ever went in had to go “out” pretty quick.  My grandmother understood this but didn’t seem to mind packing it in there.  I learned right quick why.

            She made us leave this one stall at the very end open.  It was about one truck load in size.  She and my mother would drive one of their cars down to the far end ahead of where we were “dropping”.  They; my mother and grandmother, would spend most of the day back there in that barn.  They would come to the house only in the morning and right after lunch.  There they’d look around a little bit and tell us what to do and then leave.  The rest of the day they’d be at the back of the barn “sorting”.  What they did was to “go through” everything and take out what they “want” and put that in their cars and… take it over to ANOTHER barn that my grandmother stored stuff in for years.  IF what they “want” was too big, they make us move it out into the center and then, after they had a “few things”, make us truck it over to that barn.  It was like clockwork.  As the stuff was sorted it was re-packed starting at that empty stall.  When we first came in with a new load we’d have to place what my grandmother wanted moved outside the barn before we’d unload.  I know now what they were doing.  Those two knew what to do.

            They were taking so much out “blind” (without ever having “looked” at it), they couldn’t tell what they got.  So they’d sort it as fast as they could in the barn; out of sight of anyone, take the “good stuff” out and …back fill with “the rest”.  Don’t think that the rest was “no good” cause it was GOOD.  In fact it was… as I now know… pretty well choreographically re-packed to please the eye of ANY antiquarian AND also had a “remember that” IF Richard and his wife… “come over to see” “all of it”… WHICH THEY DID.  Meanwhile all that the (“real good”) “anyone would take” “stuff” was, ah… “gone”.  It’s sort of the same as changing cars after a bank robbery ain’t it.

            Anyway, I was still learning that but Ant; he understood that but he was especially OK about it after my grandmother gave him this old shotgun he “found”.  He wouldn’t shut up about that and kept it right behind the seat of the truck the whole time we worked and was always talking about “how” “if Richard knew”.  Well… even I KNEW that the gun weren’t that good THEN but Ant was sure fetched with it.  He just loved it and he still had it hidden in his house the last time I saw him which is probably twenty years ago.  He was always afraid Richard was gonna see it and remember it and we used to laugh about that and how Richard never even knew that gun was in the barn.

            WHEN Richard and his wife came over… it was twice.  The first time they came over “to see”.  That went pretty good for when they the “to see” everyone just stood around and said how “like so much junk” all that stacked up stuff looked like.  The next time they came over because they “thought” they “wanted” a “picture” they’d “were sure” they’d seen “in the shed” of the “house” (the Codman Place) to “KEEP” as a “MEMORY”.  Well… my grandmother didn’t know what they were talking about even when they tried to describe the little box it was in that “folded closed” and how it had Old Henry’s father out in front they thought and how it was about “this big” and they held a book sideways to show that size.  So she told them to come over and look through the stuff if they wanted.  They did that and after about two hours they gave up and said how much old junk there was that no one would ever believe a house that “small” could ever have “held all that”.  They got all dirty too and they didn’t like that but they still hawked on about that picture and wanted my grandmother to bring it over “when she found it”.  Well… every old photo my grandmother “found” that she thought had “the house” in it she brought to show ‘em but it was never the right one.  A lot of times it wasn’t even the Codman place in the photograph but my grandmother showed ‘em anyway and they kept telling her how those “AREN’T THE HOUSE EVEN”.  After awhile they give up the issue and, in the end, didn’t even take the photograph of Old Henry with his first car out in front of the barn that they’d said they “Want that too” at first.

            NOW I know TOO well my grandmother was gonna be “THE GOD DAMNED” if they were gonna “go after” “that dag” for she knew a full well what that was[2] and… any damn fool would NOW but then… those were still “neat” “old” “photographs”… commercially anyway… BUT:  HELL and high water did not scare my grandmother off of ANY antique in ANY old house and… I can pretty much say I learned that good too.  So there and… well… don’t YOU come as to “what happened to that” caused I’ll “What?” and the “I don’t” and, ah… THIS STORY …for you… is about “buy’en” an old place “out” and if you ain’t a better at it after read’en this then you’s missed whole lot ah point that I DIDN’T MISS when I was just young snap.  What that means is …you can see why we trucked all that to that barn across the river and back?

            Back inside the Codman place is where the real action took place only one would never know even if you stood there the whole time and …even asked “What are you doing?” over and over.  On that first morning I was upstairs in the barn with a bunch of cardboard boxes and newspaper before Richard knew what had happened.  Once we were both up there the old “What do we need THAT for?” came out right about the boxes because… most everything up there was already in boxes and… those boxes were bigger, made wood and covered with barn, ah… “soiling”.  We both looked around in the dark at the mounds and Richard started to say something about “getting a light”.  My grandmother shut him off like a light on that with “YOU DON’T NEED A LIGHT:  PUT IT OUT IN THE YARD TILL THE TRUCK COMES”.

            We did that.  It was only about ten minutes so… well.. we were only bringing the second box down; it was a trunk, when Ant… backed right up to the barn and… weren’t he the dynamo when he was “pay him good”.  He took charge and since he knew Richard like the peas in a pod (and also “had grown up with your uncle” to me) AND… knew nothing about “antiques and that old stuff”… he’d say… but I think he knew a little more than he let on… I was suddenly going up and down that barn stairs like a popcorn vendor at the ballpark… while he and Richard “shot shit” by the truck and…:  Well… when I “free that up” by his instruction, we would ALL “move it out” right into that truck.  I was getting the dirtiest but I will say that Ant come right along in that regard while …Richard managed to avoid even bending over.  Right quick therefore we had a “full load” and… we drove off in that truck to… that barn across the river where “Your grandmother IS”.

            And she stayed there.  Till “dinner”.  Just “how smart is she” (according to Ant) began to manifest.  ANT was in charge of removing the “stuff” from the “place”.  ANT!  And he had no idea what he was doing!  And I was “helping him”.  And I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING.  We were suppose to “clean it out”.  That’s what we did except for all the time we spent joking about Richard doing nothing.  That’s what HE did:  Nothing.  And we never even saw the wife because… she spent her whole time over at the NEW house.

            At “dinner” Ant went off in the truck somewhere that I never asked but he was always right back in forty-five minutes… with a clean set of his green clothes on.  He wasn’t suppose to smoke “around you” but he got rid of that …law… right away by telling me to “never-ever smoke” (I never have) and smoking the whole everything up (at the barn door with Richard and all the time in the truck as we drove) EXCEPT for the last minute before we came in front of my grandmother.  Not that she didn’t know or care; she’d bid her peace on the subject so it was up to Ant to flank her.  Some “flank” huh.  He improved that by… managing to always swing by “the gas & go” store about three or four times a day where he was pretty well known and well; “get a soda” but toward the end of the day Ant switched from “coffee” to “ICE TEA” he called it.  “ALL those WOMEN drink ICE TEA so give me one of THEM TOO!” he’d say in the store and Evelyn; the big ole woman at the counter would laugh and hand up a big bag of what I figured out was a …quart bottle of beer… that he’d “refresh” throughout the afternoons.  Noth’en wrong with that.

            But at …that first dinner… I didn’t say much.  I listened to a conversation between my grandmother and mother that ’id curl a whole receipt pad of an antique dealer right up into a “big mother ole” bank deposit.  It was “you understand already” “in context” chatter but… it divided heaven & earth in that “Codman Place” up into “minor antiques problems”.

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[1] :  I’m pretty sure that had a little bundle of money in that “OK” too because the people were always really friendly to Ant and me even when we were there in the early morning dark and had to park outside and leave the truck lights on to see.  They liked Ant a real lot because he was always asking about their daughter who he called “That’s the PRETTY pumpkin!”.  She was younger than me and was always hiding in the barn while we worked.  Emily was her name:  “LITTLE Emi” to differentiate from her grandmother who lived there too.

[2] :  A half plate daguerreotype showing the front of the Codman house with a man in a long wagon with a banner that read “Buchanan” tied along the side of the wagon enclosed in a homemade wooden box that could be hung up so the lid folded downward when it was open but could be closed up too.