Friday the Fourteenth

 

From Time to Time, Linda goes through her silver flatware, sorts it, may make changes to what we use every day, cleans and polishes, then stores it either with pieces of chalk or that anti-oxidant cloth that jewelers use. She has more silver than cloth, so we just ordered three yards of that online, 58" wide anti-oxidant cloth, and she can cut it into whatever size pieces she needs.

Linda has her silver flatware patterns, and I have mine which is fiddle, thread, shell because I like the shells. Linda's is a mix of what we got for our wedding and her mother's and her grandmothers'. The girls didn't like Linda's fancy silver patterns, but she's given Joe either three or six table settings each of hers and of her mother's. If Joe wants more, it's here. And there's still lots besides a couple dozen of the usual table settings of knife, fork, salad fork, and teaspoon. Counting interesting pieces this morning, I came across 21 demitasse spoons, 11 butter knives, 18 ice tea spoons, 7 oyster forks, 9 grapefruit spoons, ... . What does a couple nearing ninety years of age do with things of old Time that nobody wants anymore? I say leave it for the heirs to deal with. 

I mean, you never know these days when you'll need a demitasse spoon, except that Linda gave Tass all her demitasse cups because they're a nice size for serving desserts like chocolate pot-a-creme. As for having your demitasse of coffee after dinner, in a restaurant the waiter was taking orders for dessert and one woman asked for "just a demitasse." As he served the desserts to everyone else, he gave the woman a regular cup filled with coffee. When she protested, "I asked for a demitasse," the waiter said, "Well, just drink half of it." Some days and customs of "good taste" are gone forever, and we don't know whether we miss them or not! At this age, mostly not.

There's all sorts of stuff here from our generation and before, that people no longer use. Tiny salt spoons. Sugar shells. Spoons for serving cranberry sauce. Fish knives and forks, including two sets that I bought at Harrods or Selfridges in London nearly thirty-five years ago and that only I use. Silver tongs for GKW, maybe sugar cubes. Child-size fork and spoon in The Pattern. Gravy ladles, gravy boats, and smaller ladles for other liquids on the table.

When we downsized to 7H from The Old Place, Linda contracted with "Specialists of the South" (destroyed by the hurricane) to auction dozens or hundreds of articles, including linen, furniture, art, china and crystal, but none of the sterling. There are children's "birth spoons" dated 1902, 1909 and such that are here if you need something to stir your coffee or tea. The things are family treasures that we're not selling, so as I say, the heirs can deal with it. 

Including my dozens of die-cast model cars and hundreds of old car brochures that I started collecting in 1948 and right on for years. Every fall when we lived in Japan, John, a Navy buddy who was my classmate at the Univ of Michigan, mailed me a huge collection of the new car brochures. And friends and loved ones since, including car brochures from England. If I gave all that away it'd be gone, and I'd no longer know who I am!

Anyway, Friday: last chance to whittle my Sunday nonsense down into something reasonably coherent.

RSF&PTL

T88&c