since the lists seem pretty slow right now, I thought someone might get a
kick out of this
I'm sure this is NOT a true story, but I have heard some true ones almost
this bad, this would be my worst nightmare
Sharon
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"Cleaning Mother's House" by Michael John Neill
Setting the scene:
It has been nearly a year since fictional genealogist Barbara passed
away. Her daughter, Charlene, reflects upon that year in a letter to her
friend, Karen.
Charlene truly has been busy.
Barbara is probably rolling over in her grave.
Karen, As usual, my cards are late. It has been a busy year.
We spent much of the year settling up Mother's estate. The house
sold well, but cleaning it took longer than we expected.
You are probably the only person who did not know Mother was a
genealogy buff. She told practically every human she encountered.
I'm convinced that genealogy "nut" was the most accurate phrase.
The stuff was all over the house.
The inheritance would have been enough to pay for my new
Mercedes had she not insisted on spending money
on that blasted hobby.
I don't know why she couldn't be more like Tom's mother.
Nadine spends her day doing needlepoint and watching
reruns of 50s television shows. Tom just does
not realize how lucky he is, but men never do.
My mother had to run off to cemeteries and courthouses.
She even went to a conference in Davenport, Iowa, last year!
Can you imagine? Davenport, Iowa!
After she got back, she was so excited about all
that she had learned and all the fun she had that
she was planning on going to another one in California this year.
Well, the grim reaper took care of that.
Because of my promotion to head of knick knack sales
at
Garbageforless.com, I had not been home for several years.
I was appalled to learn that Mother had converted
my old bedroom into her family history "headquarters."
My shelves of Teen Beat and other magazines
documenting my adolescence had been replaced
with old family photographs, copies of old documents,
and something called family group sheets.
She even got rid of the pants I wore to my first
junior high dance. I cried at the thought.
I could not bear to go in the room and be reminded that
my childhood had been stripped from me and replaced
with an obsession with the past.
I told the children that if they would clean the room
and prepare the items for the garage (should I say "garbage"?)
sale they could have the proceeds.
I learned what true entrepreneurs they are.
Kenny stripped Mother's hard drive in under ten minutes.
I kept hearing him say "GedCom is GedGone . .
.GedCom is GedGone . . ." I have no idea what it meant,
but the computer fetched a good price.
Before he unplugged the computer, he erased all Mom's
floppy disks and downloaded public domain games.
He sold these at a nominal price.
Susan took the old photographs to a flea market and
was able to sell many of them. Some special labels
had to be taken off and we had to take them out
of protective envelopes. Mother had written the names
on the back of many of them. At least none of those pictures
of depressing old dead people had our last name
written on them. I don't want to be associated with such
sour people.
Mother had some type of old plat book -- whatever that is.
Kenny tore out the pages individually and sold them
separately on Ebay. It was so clever. His dad said
he got much more than if he had left the book in one piece.
Susan didn't tear the bibles apart though. I thought
that showed tremendously good sense.
She's learning that not everything can be marketed
in the same way.
The 1790 bible brought her a good penny, but she
couldn't get the one from 1900 to bring more
than fifty cents. She donated it to a local church,
and here is where I am so proud of her:
we can write it off as a charitable deduction.
Someone had written what they had paid
for the bible on the back cover.
Susan converted that to 2001 dollars and will use that
for our tax deduction amount. I've already enrolled Susan
in tax lawyer summer camp this coming August.
There was some old large certificate written on
heavy paper. The silly thing wasn't even in English,
so why would Mother keep it? Kenny used
the other side to keep track of the things he had sold.
Waste not, want not. When we were finished we put
the paper in the recycling bin.
The kids put an old wedding dress from the 1870s
in the washer to get the stains out. It was terribly filthy.
The worthless thing didn't even survive the extra long
cycle and the half-gallon of bleach. It's doubtful we
can even use it for cleaning rags.
The dress was in some kind of old trunk. I'm not certain
what it was for, but it had a name stenciled on the front
in huge letters along with the name of a town. Susan
gave it a good coating of red paint and sold it as a
toy box.
The filing cabinets were emptied of their contents,
as were the three shelves of binders. Kenny got
the bright idea to shred the paper and sell it in bags
as New Year's confetti. The file folders were too heavy
to shred.
The baby did not react well to any of this. She cried
and fussed almost the entire time. Kenny thought
she wanted tea, which made no sense to me
at all. As she cried, it sounded like she was saying
"family tee."
She can't even talk yet; I think Kenny was hearing things.
The baby does look exactly like my mother though,
it's the oddest thing.
The fussing didn't stop until she spit up
an entire bottle of strained prunes on my junior high
jeans, which we did find in the basement.
They were ruined -- it was the one real loss.
Now my past has really been taken
from me -- magazines and all.
Charlene