My Grandpa was a radio repairman who expanded into televisions when they became common. He had a workshop and a tendency to acquire things which he intended to fix. These are the televisions we removed from his garage today.
This is a view of about a third of the garage, many televisions remain.
I went through and counted, we have 22 of them left to haul to the recycling center where they will be stripped down for parts. None of them are in current working order. I’m told that my parents had already hauled away piles of TVs on a previous visit here. So my best guess is that Grandpa had around 80 TVs sitting around that he intended to fix or to use for parts to fix something else.
Standing in the garage with Kiki, she looked around and said “I didn’t even really know him, but he’s here.” Yes. That building is filled with who he was. and there are finally enough TVs removed that we can see it. We can see what he valued and how he organized it. Grandpa was all about function and re-using things.
I remember his hands were rough and always stained with dirt or grease. Apparently he went through a lot of bandaids and then kept all the containers because those little metal cans would surely be useful for something eventually.
In contrast, Grandma collected beautiful things. Here you can see a few of her lamps. Along with the clown doll which creeped me out, particularly after I’d seen the movie Poltergeist.
We’ve sorted through lots of glassware, all sorted and carefully stored. Here are the decanters that she displayed in her windows.
Up above the lovely decanters is a reminder of why the house has to go. Water damage.
And then there are the places where we’ve tried to keep out the wildlife with only limited success.
Today was spent sorting, labeling, and hauling off larger items. Tomorrow more of my siblings will have arrived and we’ll have a much larger work crew. The hauling will continue as will the discoveries. All the work reminds my of why I love this house and why we have to let it go. It reminds me of why I love my Grandparents, and my sadness that they are no longer here. This process has me remembering things I had forgotten and telling some of those stories to my kids. I’m thinking about what people leave behind them when they go. For now I need to rest. I’m going to be stiff and sore tomorrow.