Silver Salad Tongs

I was raised in a family where personal belongings were cherished. They are regarded as treasures and the stories of their beginnings were told with the deepest respect.  My grandmothers' homes are filled with "hand-me-downs" -- tarnished trinkets on dressers, crocheted afghans thrown over aged furniture, collections of teapots, sugar bowls and fine crystal.  Everything has a detailed story connected to it.  I've heard each one several times, as I listened to them being retold by my Mother and Grandmothers.  Here I learned the importance of family history. In the absence of a long passed ancestor, I feel their presence while holding the precious treasure.

As a Hauler's Wife I've collected an arsenal of other people's treasures.  Their stories are lost by the time I come into the picture.  As I gently handle pieces of jewelry, leaf through books with inscriptions, or admire hand knit sweaters I often christen the item with my own rendition of its heritage.  Sometimes I'm lucky to have a faded photo in the mix.  When I do, I match the face to the item and off I go conjuring up my version of what happened and eventually put the item in my treasure box.  My curiosity has become a little ritualistic, or maybe obsessive.  In my opinion all things deserve their last rites...or a new beginning! 

Recently my mind wandered as I held a set of silver salad tongs...to anyone else, it would be just that -- salad servers, for pete's sake.  But this was different.  This particular item was found in an abandoned house -- at least that's what was reported through the pictures.  In the shuffle of "junk" a photo album had been unearthed. Feeling intrusive, but curious, I devoured the pages. The pictures revealed a young couple during their courtship, their fun-filled college days, their eventual marriage and the birth announcement of a child - a baby girl named Elizabeth Claire. Then.. the frequency of the pictures began to dwindle and eventually stopped .  I imagined a couple much like any other that our middle class America manufactures: full of hopes, dreams...and plans of a future together. Life would be grand, they promised one another.  Their smiles were infectious as I flipped through the pages.

But, I had seen the pictures taken the day of the "trash out" and knew there was no happily ever after ending.  The abandoned house was literally trashed -- but the remnants left behind offered clues to a different past.  From the pictures I spied tastefully painted walls with over-sized furniture and home decorations that screamed "HGTV".  This once was a beautiful home. A toddler's yellow and orange minivan was in the background, tipped to one side, door to the car open ... abandoned.  The pictures scanned the back yard to reveal a stainless steel built-in barbeque grill and a volleyball net ripped from the pole; the ball lay off to the side, aged from sun exposure and begging for one last match.  The long grass had grown around hundreds of beer bottles left haphazardly throughout the scene.  The fence, faded with age was leaning toward the street, exhausted from holding the past within.  Here it is, I thought, the average American family gone wrong.   

My mind returned to the salad tongs.  I held them up to examine them more closely.  Stamped with "Wallace Sterling" I imagined engagement parties, giggly girls getting their manicures and pedicures, ribbon bouquets delicately made for the bride-to-be, and the lime sherbet 7-Up punch served in a deep glass party bowl used only for special occasions.  I envisioned the young bride holding the tongs up in the air for all to see and I heard the ohhhs and ahhhs as each relative, cousin, and friend admired the pattern.  In my mind, the proud silver set was passed to each guest to admire more closely.  Along the way, someone made a quip about being the first to be invited over for the couple's first dinner party and how nice the silver would look aside the previously opened mango wood salad bowl.  The bride's Maid of Honor cautioned that friends may have to wait a longgggg time for an invitation because the couple had been "waiting for marriage" to spend the night together! This make believe memory made me smile. 

Snapping back to reality, I gathered up the silver polish and went to work.  I have a remedy for broken dreams.  I may never know what happened to that family.  But, I do have some control over the inanimate objects left behind.  These salad tongs deserve a new beginning.  Once polished they can reign over my family gatherings and one day become a treasure my daughters will speak of to their daughters.