Heirlooms or Discards

My cluttered garage and I have been looking forward to this week for a long time, knowing that it’s finally our neighborhood’s turn to audition for Curbside American Pickers. Yes, you guessed it –this has been our week to be in the magic quadrant for Ashland’s annual spring clean-up.

I read the rules printed in the Times-Gazette and knew we weren’t supposed to put items out until Sunday night, but since our assigned Sunday was Easter, many of our neighbors began to haul their discards to the tree lawn on Saturday. Not wanting to interrupt our Easter dinner or Easter nap for that chore, we followed suit, dragging what seemed like a ton of stuff to the curb. Two couches, a rusty lawnmower, the shorted-out dehumidifier, a futon mattress and other odds and ends destroyed our curb appeal for a bit, and I was a bit worried we might exceed the three cubic yard maximum. I didn’t have time to obsess about that, because by Sunday afternoon, all that was left was a broken plant stand and a tired couch.

It’s been entertaining to watch the Ashland ‘pickers’ descend on our treasures. Some are on the look-out for metal, shoving bits and pieces into their pick-up trucks and vans. Others are checking out the items to see if there is anything they can use in their own homes, an adventure I’ve been known to partake in from time to time. One man lifted our lawnmower into his trailer, telling us that he’d have it running in no time. Obviously, one family’s trash is another family’s treasure.

It seems fitting that our quadrant’s spring clean-up week coincided with Earth Day 2014. Over the years, I’ve made a sincere attempt to be “green” conscious, recycling plastic, cans and newspapers, and conserving energy as much as I can. So I’ve been glad to see that much of what’s discarded is recycled in some way, either for parts, for use in someone’s home, or sold for scrap rather than dumped in a landfill.

As I walked around our neighborhood this week, I wondered about the stories our discarded possessions could tell if only they had a voice. What letters were written at the scarred desk? How many babies were cradled through the night in the rocking chair with the missing back? How many feverish children spent the day on the aged couch, accompanied by a cool washcloth, a glass of 7-Up, and a stream of endless cartoons?

Eyeballing the belongings that have now been kicked to the curb, I’ve also been wondering about what gives material items value. Why do we sometimes keep household goods long past their functionality? When is it time to let go? What do we continue to hold onto?

I discovered part of the answer to my questions when I visited with my mother recently. We got a chance to talk a bit about her possessions: the re-caned rocking chair that was Little Grandma’s, the 78 records we played while roller skating in the basement, and the beautiful pitcher that has been patched so carefully and brings so much enjoyment to my mom. Some are antiques, and some simply have sentimental value as they are connected to the one who gave a gift or created a memory.

Then there’s the olive green Dutch Girl clock/statue that’s about two feet tall. My dad used to tell us that if the house ever caught on fire, he’d rescue her so he could accidentally drop her in the driveway, because he didn’t want any of his children to have to inherit that ugly family heirloom. But I’m guessing that when the time comes for her to find a new home, one of us (children, grandchildren or even the one great-grandchild, the lovely Madelyn Simone) will save her from the curb. After all, as Elizabeth Aston wrote in Mr. Darcy’s Daughters, “Anyone may have diamonds: an heirloom is an ornament of quite a different kind.” That’s why my ugly Dutch Girl friend won’t spend her final days sitting on a threadbare couch on a Walnut Street tree lawn.