I suppose the small kitchen fire that left it's tell tale sooty stains on the kitchen walls may have been reason to move the Old man out of his lifelong home. After all, we don't need him rambling around that big old decrepit house by himself. So they hire an Auctioneer to come & remove anything of value, to be sold at some later date for 10 cents on the dollar. The rest will remain as a testament to a life once lived in this old house! The spacious old home becomes storage for all manner of benign farm junk till the line between what belongs & what doesn't becomes blurred! But as we pass through the kitchen into a dark cluttered bedroom, we see small windows into the old man's life. We gingerly step over old mattresses as my eyes move up the wall & glance a set of antlers lovingly mounted on a homemade wooden plaque. A prize from his past, something he was proud of!
We teeter on the old mattresses till we make our way to the rooms only closet, containing many clues to a life. Here are old suit jackets, dress pants, shirts...... I notice the absence of womans clothing, did he lose his wife recently, or possibly many years ago? As I slowly put my hand into one of the well worn suit coat pockets, I know what I'll find there. I pull out the pink tissue & smile to myself. It's simple reasoning..... suits are generally worn to weddings or funerals, both of which elicit tears...... whether of joy or saddness. I notice this tissue is well worn & looks as if it's been held tightly in his hand. Tears of saddness then?? This tissue was worthless to the auctioneer as were the clothes left in the closet but these are the things of true worth, they tell the story of a man's life complete with sorrows as well as celebrations of happiness. Further investigation renders a name on some paperwork, now at least we know his name, as well as an occupation.... Farmer. Receipts for visits to a Doctor some 50+ years ago. Weighbills for grain delivered to a local grainery some 45+ years ago. These scraps of paper represent the prime of this man's life, when he was head of his family, father of children, successful farmer, provider.
We move from this room back into the kitchen where Michael opens the warming compartment on the old cookstove revealing some old cast iron frying pans still lined up neatly, ready to be used. On the table sits an old mantle clock, missing it's hands, frozen in time, decaying like the old house. An old bed frame, a couple old oak kitchen chairs all in disrepair. Into the livingroom with it's mixture of farm junk & remnants of household furniture. There's an overstuffed chair stuffed with horsehair sitting forelornly in a side room. The livingroom was once decorated with beautiful vintage wallpaper but now saddly has the telltale waterstains of a rapidly disintegrating roof. I look up in the corner of the doorway where there sits an old poppy, pinned there on a Rememberence Day long past. Maybe he served in one of the great wars? Maybe his sons served?
We made our way to a set of stairs that led to the upper floor. There were 3 or 4 stairs missing, rotted from the large hole in the roof above. We negotiated this black hole with great care & landed on the top floor. The first thing you see here is a couple old NHL hockey game boards, long since missing the metal hockey players. The sliders still work though! Some childs pride & joy at one time I'm sure. There were boxes of old hardcover books, some of which we opened & to our suprise, they contained more documents belonging to the old occupant & more insite into his life. The pigeons ruled this top floor & had made a considerable mess everywhere. As I looked out these top floor windows, all I could see was mile after mile of acreage in all directions, this was probably not all that different from what the children who lived up here would have seen many years before. I stood still for a moment & enjoyed the cool breeze that made it's way through the broken windows & with eyes closed, I could almost hear children's laughter. You can strip a house of it's contents, let it slowly decay but you can never remove the memories made by the people harbored within it's warm wooden walls.
As we prepared to decend the stairs, I stuck my head & shoulders out the large rotted hole in the roof & looked at the old wooden ladder mounted to the roof, the decaying wood shakes. It was early fall & the leaves were falling all around, the fall smells were heavy on the breeze, everything was turning shades of yellow, red, orange. It was really quite a site from my rooftop perch! So down the stairs we went, rather carefully, not wanting to end up in the basement the fast way! We then took the stairs leading down to the basement & as we approached the first landing, Michael's foot went through the floor, no doubt scary for him & a warning of the dangers encountered in a slowly disintegrating house! The basement had more odd items aquired over a lifetime, an old boat motor, an old wooden airplane propeller, tricycle, tool bench, old bottles, tins, tractor parts, a big old brown glass jug which at one time had contained Cod Liver Oil!! Poor kids!!!! Just as I was about to step on an old carpet, Michael moved it revealing the old cold storage pit without the trap door attached!! That would have hurt!!!
After the last pictures were taken & we'd seen all there was to see down here, we made our way up the stairs & out to the property. There were numerous out buildings, old equipment, an old boat that had seen better days. We took the odd picture as we slowly made our way to the bikes. We were suprised, looking at our watches that we'd spent over 2 hours in this special place! As I walked this property & pondered, it occured to me. The auctioneer had not sold the items of real value, they were still in this place. A name on a piece of paper, some tissue in a coat pocket, a child's board game, a set of ancient deer antlers mounted on a wall, the pride & joy of the hunter, frying pans lined up ready to be used but most of all, the memories made here on which you cannot put a price. And so the old house stands alone, like a sentinel, a witness to the lives it sheltered for all those many years!
James.
But a house that has done what a house should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put it's loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest site, when it's left alone, that your eyes will ever meet.
6th verse from the poem "House with nobody in it" by Joyce Kilmer.
James.
But a house that has done what a house should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put it's loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest site, when it's left alone, that your eyes will ever meet.
6th verse from the poem "House with nobody in it" by Joyce Kilmer.