Treasure under the floorboards
Hi, have I mentioned this — I found treasure — tucked up in the basement rafters? We’re having handy guys rehabilitate our 1940 basement because it’s been mouldy from seepage, and outright standing water, for 25 years. I tried at times to stop it, once berming up the outside wall. We demolished a bomb shelter (actually an underground, low-ceilinged room that stored a huge oil drum for a former boiler, and storm windows, topped by a City of Minneapolis manhole cover, under the grass. This awful adjoining space leaked a dribbly aquifer into the laundry room. But demoing, waterproofing and blocking it up didn’t stop the constant seepage from two drops of rain. After putting in drain tile and a sump pump, we decided to tear out the nasty Berber carpeting, drop ceiling, and drywall. Down came a roll of crispy but lush, blue and white-starred linoleum, and a Stetson hat. Still to come down, but likely pinned up there forever by ductwork, is a red-painted, wire bird cage. An old neighbor once told me the original owners, Emil and Wilhelmina, had so many collectibles, like a zebra rug and an antelope head on the wall, “a person couldn’t walk from the front door to the fireplace.” That’s about twelve feet. We have a little house. There are many like it. But this one is ours.
I lost my way around here.
Anyway, the cement guy has come and gone, the drywall guy come and gone, electrical come and gone, and the carpet guy will come in a couple weeks. Our plumber has had to replace the laundry tub drain, the basement privy sink drain, and now the master bath tub has been discovered to be leaking. It’s been leaking. It may have been leaking since 300 AD. We don’t use our basement because it stinks of cat pee whenever it gets wet. Chloe has been gone since 2008. She was 20. Also, the master lav-sink drain in the basement ceiling is duct taped together. Like everything here, sins keep spreading. I have a 50:50 chance of making plumbing worse, so I never touch pipes. I would like to stay married.
In our kitchen we have a weird dustbin built into the kitchen floor. Never used it. The idea was to pop its lid and sweep the floor into it. Electrical (guys) gutted all of Emil’s wiring from the rafters, running new lines and conduits to our first level outlets. Did I mention Emil worked for NSP (Northern States Power) for 40 years? Made me wonder if he knew anything about wiring. Electrical ran a steel conduit in the basement rafter between the floors, which suddenly pushed up the bin. I’ve never removed the silver bin, because it was likely soldered into place by 50 years of peanut butter and bacon grease. When I suddenly could not open the back door for bumping into it, because it was no longer flush with the floor, I said, “What’s going on now?” lifted the clean dustbin out, and set it on the floor to stare down into the hole in the matrix.
Well, whatdoyouknow! — a leather jewelry box was stashed in the dark subfloor behind it. My thoughts raced: this is a set-up; it’s a booby-trap; it’s nuclear codes; it’s a jewelry box. It’s got a Schindler’s List inside it. (Our forbears were German immigrants who built the house in 1940.)
Most of the following are subject to verification by a gemologist or metal guy: $2 bills from 1953, a gold watch, lots of cuff links and tie pins, and inside a ratty envelope from Commercial State Bank of 6th and Washington in downtown Minneapolis, a diamond that looks to be about a carat in size.
This is a hell of a find. But I don’t want to find things now. I’m trying to lighten up. I can’t part with things. I’m torn to bits. They’re endowed. We had a quilt and civil war picture of a swarthy doctor from my wife’s elders, and it took her years to send it out of state to a historical society. If I see a photo of anyone’s precious things, even unrelated, be it a quill pen, baby booties, gold NSP tie pin that says “40 years of service,” quick! Get me a smelter so I can melt it down before my grubby fingers turn it into people, and then the people start chatting, and I want to learn if I love and miss them now.
Memories, even borrowed ones, lay on me like sod. My wife is going through cool pictures of her grandma’s people. We just got back from walking a cemetery over the weekend, searching for a marker of my great-grandparents. Couldn’t find them. I need a break from memories, especially borrowed memories. But as the Talking Heads sang, “These memories can’t wait.”
I just want to shrink them down like Shrinky Dinks, and tuck them under my brain’s floorboards. I am so tired!
I want fresh, new, linen language, of kids and other people breathily laughing and chatting in my face today. I want words that flap all white and pastel on a clothesline in the breeze, and they smell like hay.
Please interact, and share and stuff. Thanks for reading! I feel so heavy. This is just me trying to get a weight off my mind.
Your faithful scribe,
Hotspvrre
EDIT: jeweler said it’s all costume jewelry.