The keeper of memories...

When my parents bought their last house the previous owner had left a lot of personal things behind.  They had passed away, and the children didn't want a lot of what had been left if it didn't have monetary value.  A few of those items were the deceased diplomas.  He was a very accomplished man- graduated from the Virginia Military Academy and a chemical engineering degree from Rice University aka The Harvard of the South.  He went on to become the Vice President of Exxon.

I am now the keeper of these memories.  The diplomas are beautiful with hand written signatures and printed on beautiful vellum and sheepskins...

I'm thinking of framing them.  Sounds silly, I know, but they seem more like art to me than "just diplomas"....

Need vs. Want...

I try to justify the things I purchase with my "need vs. want" litmus test.  Then I follow it up with the

1.  do I love it?

and

2.  do I need it?

questions.

Sometimes you see something that brings back a very specific memory of your childhood and you just have to file it under the need category.

Today I was perusing Miss Mustard Seed's on line store and spotted this...

Via Miss Mustard Seed

It's an antique German squeeze box.  Better known as the accordion.  My dad was born in 1928 and grew up in the Bronx, very poor, and the son of a bridge painter.   It was 1935 and my grandfather didn't have much to give his boys, but he did value music and knew that was a skill his kids needed to learn.  He went to a pawn shop and bought a secondhand Honer accordion.  It was a simple two octave instrument with twelve buttons on one side.  Shortly after my dad found himself standing in front of the New York School of Music on 3rd Avenue in the Bronx- accordion in hand.

The lessons were 10 cents a class, and it was there that my dad learned how to read music and play chords.  He told me that the first day he walked up to the place there was a group of guys in front of the store looking at the old sign out front.  Wind was causing the sign to sway back and forth- making a loud squeaking sound.  There was much debate as to what key the sign was squeaking in.  My dad wondered if they were seriously that musically geeky or just trying to impress a young kid.

When my grandparents had anyone over they would tell the boys to grab the accordion and play a waltz.  They would also get my dad to sing.  He has an amazing voice and I swear he can whistle better than Bing Crosby could.  Grandpa would have him sing Wreck of the Old 97.   I love that my dad chuckles low under his breath every time he tells the story.

I guess if you were to look at it rationally, I really didn't need the accordion, but the older I get the more I cherish the stories.  As soon as I saw the accordion I knew I wanted it and I knew why.

I want the stories to stay alive.