I'm sorting through Mom's files, separating the wheat from the chaff.
Chaff: EVERY receipt for EVERY appliance bought since 1959. Toasters long gone. (Old charge card receipts printed the entire charge card number; that was quaint.) She kept a disturbing number of clippings about MS. Plus many articles about keeping your senses as you grow old.
Wheat: Lists of garden plantings, family history, old Christmas newsletters, and an intriguing document Mom wrote titled "History of the House."
She details who built the house (the Kaufmans), who then bought the house ten years later (the Bartes), what trees were planted and removed, all room dimensions, and all repairs.
We are then moved into the house in third person, as "The Davis Family." After a few more paragraphs about roofs and when they were installed, she writes,
"When the Davises removed the red velour flocked wallpaper in the bathroom they discovered this hole in the wall behind the mirror. Margaret" [that would be Mom] "thought 'if somebody had left us a history of this house we would have know about this hole and the plumber could have installed the new shower in half the time.' So she wrote this little history for you. And just in case there are any little kids in the house the next time the wall is papered she gathered up some interesting stuff to leave there for them to find."
What the ... ? She did? I removed that red flocked wallpaper myself, and I'm sure I would have been in on any caper involving time capsules left for future generations, but of this I have no recall at all.
"...The next time the wall is papered ... " Of course, how could Mom know about the violent wallpaper bigotry that has overcome the civilized world? I now have to remove all the wallpaper I put up to replace the bordello wallpaper. I'll be sure to check in that hole and see what's there.
I never would have replaced the bordello paper. That probably speaks volumes about me. I swear that I'm going to paint over the sickly yellow in my downstairs powder room, though. I've decided that I'll buy the paint as soon as I get a tax refund, or with any cash I have left after the cruise. From now until cruise time, I'm not spending on anything non-essential.
I still need to go through the rest of my mother's jewelry box. It's been... 23 years. Crap.
Posted by: Tami | January 03, 2011 at 10:54 AM
That's so exciting! I would totally help you remove wallpaper just to find out!
Posted by: elisabeth | January 03, 2011 at 03:14 PM
Siiiigh. Your mom was so great.
Posted by: Erin G. | January 03, 2011 at 03:33 PM
Yup.
Posted by: Becs | January 03, 2011 at 05:11 PM
Damn it. I swore off ever dealing with wallpaper removal again and this is so intriguing that I must volunteer to help. Call me when it's time.
Posted by: Caroline | January 03, 2011 at 09:13 PM
Tami - 23 years? Okay, that's my goal now.
Elisabeth - It sounds like it needs to be videotaped, like Geraldo breaking into Capones vault.
Erin G - She loved a caper.
Becs - Truth.
Caroline - Oh, I'm not taking down the paper. I'm taking down the mirror and stabbing the paper with a kitchen knife until it breaks through.
Posted by: TheQueen | January 04, 2011 at 01:30 AM
I want to be there when you murder the wallpaper with a kitchen knife.
Posted by: Hot Mom | January 07, 2011 at 06:35 PM
Hot Mom - it's very nice Waverly wallpaper. It will hurt me to murder it.
Posted by: TheQueen | January 08, 2011 at 12:09 AM