(At some point, we found a box of Aunt Rhoda’s dress hats. Just the finishing touch for the well-dressed estate cleaner-outer. Photo Socotra.)
Well, it was a circus. Spike called to let me know that his airplane suffered a bird-strike on final into Alpena, and there was some controversy over whether the machine was subsequently airworthy.
“They are flying a mechanic in from St. Ignace,” he said. “Should have the matter resolved in an hour or so.
“Well, first, that is good news that you are on the ground safely,” I said, gazing out over the hulking hood of The Beat. “But I suppose waiting at the Pellston airport isn’t going to be a good use of my time.”
“No,” he said. “Maybe you can drive over and pick me up here, or there is a bus. But it has to come from Pellston.”
“Crap. I am just going to turn around and go back to the house and wait and see what the mechanic says.”
He clicked off and I turned around at the strip mall at the north end of town. The new owner- and she is the owner, as of Monday, wanted to tour the house with her architect, so there was that, and of course Big Mama’s pal Dee was supposed to come up from Torch Lake, and The Dumpster arrived, suspended from a cage-like hauling frame attached to the back of a battered F250 pickup.
With that cavernous container in place, there was a place to start moving things, and I set about it with a will.
No, you know exactly how it went. “Christ, there is a metal model car for every one that they had owned in the sixty-five year marriage, from the Model A through Raven’s PT Cruiser,” I muttered to myself. My younger son called and asked if I could look around and find a picture of Raven in his dress blues to go along with those of his other grandfather and me and him, of course.
That meant looking at the albums that rested ominously on the shelves in the library. Annook had taken fifty boxes of books out of the house and donated them to the Village library and the place was still full of crap.
That is what I was looking at in bewilderment when Dee showed up, and she asked if she could walk around the house and take it all in. I said: “Sure,” and continued to separate things into “retain” piles and “trash.”
There was media in a wild number of formats. VHS tapes, of course, CDs, some weird video complete with a player I could not recognize. Old floppy discs. And the complete letters from our Grandmother to her daughter. Where to start? Where does it end in the Dumpster?
Of course it wasn’t all trash, the stuff that was going on an increasing stack to go to the Dumpster. Big Mama’s “Harry Potter” files, for example. Her interests ran far afield- there were binders about current films, circa two years ago, and then white binders for all the members of the family, current and now past, and Historical Society files and bundles of papers containing oral histories of the Little Village By the Bay.
And plain trash. I picked up the copy of “The Thirty-Six Hour Day,” by Mace and Rabins.. It is a guide to dealing with the ravages of Alzheimer’s. I thought about Raven’s long journey- the vibrant man I saw in all those photo albums and the radiant quality of Big Mama’s beauty. Then I threw the book into the pile to go to Goodwill. We don’t need it anymore.
And curios and knick-knacks and photo albums of sales conferences of companies that don’t exist any more and people who no longer live.
(Dee and Patti The New Owner, right. Gracious Lady. Photo Socotra.)
The New Owner showed up in a sleek charcoal Grand Cherokee about the same minute that Pam-the-Renter got off for lunch at the hospital to remind us not to throw out her stuff, which was segregated from the rest of the debris in the garage.
Patti-the-owner was elegant and gracious. I was genuinely pleased to meet her, and she had some grand plans for the place. “I have been waiting twenty years for a view like this,” she said as we went out on the cantilevered deck. She shook her raven hair. “I just want a place where I can retreat from the world, but that has enough of a town to keep my husband interested. He would hate to be out in the woods someplace.”
Her Architect showed up shortly thereafter as I was tottering back and forth from the stacks of boxes in the garage, and Sue from Boyne City stopped by to say “Hi,” and then Spike appeared miraculously in the driveway.
“Bunch of the former passengers just rented a mini-van at the Alpeena Airport,” he said, dropping his bag on the driveway. “What needs to get done?”
“Everything,” I said. “But we got a dumpster, and that is a start.”
We disposed of Aunt Rhoda, her estate and papers as a start. I opened another box and found Grandpa, who I never met, and his adventures in putting the telephones on the Panama Canal, and wiring the capital. Jesus- what are you supposed to do with this stuff?
At some point it was pointed out that it was approaching cocktail hour, and we knocked off to eat some pizza and drink wine.
Pam-the-Renter hit it off with the new owner- as did we all. He husband used to play English football for Arsenal, my favorite UK team, and she is witty and wry and actually knows the guy who produces TMZ, the guiltiest pleasure on television.
The sweeping nature of the reconstruction she anticipates means she may be able to rent for another year. Good news there, and the changes are going to be breathtaking. A wall of glass along the whole rear of the house, and walls being blown out to accommodate a new master suite that will incorporate the original garage attached to the main house.
“I don’t think we are going to have to worry about cleaning up too much,” said Spike, when we were finally alone in the house.
I took a deep sip of vodka. “And we have a Dumpster,” I said. “I wonder what we can trash tomorrow. The movers come at 0830.”
“Sounds like fun,” he said, yawning. “I can’t believe I was in court in Arizona yesterday.”
“I can’t believe we are all here,” I said. “And I guess it is just a question of getting ‘er done.”
It was not a bad sunset. The new owner said we could all come back and see in a year’s time what she and Kiki had done with the place.
We told her we would be delighted. All we need to do is move some crap to the Dumpster and we are done.
(Spike looks out at the Bay. Photo Socotra.)
Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com