Grappa's Legacy

I spent a good part of Saturday helping Gramma Pickles clear out the house so she can move to an apartment in town. This picture is looking out their kitchen window. I thought this would be one view I might miss years from now ... I think this is a stand of birch trees near the old house.

Grappa had a "Depression Era mentality," so he never threw anything away, because you never know when you might need it! He must have had some hoarding tendencies, too. I had to resist filling up the car with stuff to bring home to my house (so maybe I've got some of those genes, too)--something to guard against.

Here are some of the items we found in the clean out :

Box after box of matches (These are just the ones I came across on Saturday. My mom found many more earlier, and likely there are still many boxes still in the house) :



It's amazing how useful an old Velveeta cheese box is ...



He was always saving stuff for the old school bus he was converting into a camper. Maybe the matches were for that effort? Maybe he had no idea how many match books he already had? Maybe he was preparing for Y2K?

He was a "saver." Gramma gave my mom a set of silverware (still in the original box) that they got as a gift at their 25th wedding anniversary. Grappa never let her use it--He was saving it for some special occasion, I guess. She also had a brand new set of China from their wedding (over 50 years ago!) still in the box, because (again) he wouldn't let her use it. I get kind of upset thinking about how they lived in such poverty when they didn't really need to ... It's a good thing Gramma can start over in her own apartment in town.


This was found in the kitchen near the chair where Grappa always sat. Was this supposed to enhance vitality? Or was it a substance for hunting? Do you drink it, or wear it like cologne? Maybe that's more than I want to know ... And how do you get it out of the fox?


This is an example of the kinds of things we found and threw directly into the dumpster. Why was he saving this stuff? In this ZipLock bag were these contents, carefully saved and squirrelled away :
* Foam covers metal hangers (These were rotting and falling apart.)
* Mesh bags from onions and tomatoes
* Plastic hanger hooks
* 2 dried up pens still in the original packaging
(No matches in this bag, thankfully!)

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These are the steps leading up stairs in their old house. They always scared me as a kid because I was always afraid I'd fall through the holes--right down to the basement.




One of our first tasks on Saturday was to clear out all the boxes and stuff on these steps. Grappa & Gramma kept every box from every single thing they ever bought or received as a gift--complete with the original packing material. The steps were lined with boxes all the way up. I spent a good 90 minutes or so just breaking down cardboard boxes. Then on my way out to the dumpster in the yard, the box I was using to carry many other flattened boxes burst, and all those boxed exploded down the steps out the back door. If it had been a ticker-tape parade, I suppose it would have been something to celebrate ... It was a spectacle!

What I didn't realize was that perhaps those boxes were there on the steps to keep a kid from falling through to the basement. There is a gap of 10 inches or so on each side of the steps--the flats don't go all the way to the wall. As you can see, there is no kickstop ... another place for a kid to slip through.

My mom says she used to jump from the 8th-9th-10th steps all the way down to the hallway below. She had no fears ...



These are some of the few things I claimed from Grappa's legacy : cheesecloth and scrim. I plan to dye it and use it for art projects. I'll never need to purchase more ...

The lesson here is that it would be useful and considerate to go through all your stuff yourself before your kids have to do it for you. I'm sure Grappa never thought it would cost anything to get rid of this stuff.