I live in a house that was built in 1970. That makes it about 50 years old, give or take a few months. And it’s about what you would expect: three bedrooms, a couple of baths, single carport since converted into an office. Paneling. Ceiling tile. Hardwired in-wall ceramic heaters (no longer in use), the sight of which nearly caused my young electrician to suffer a stroke, but a half-century ago, they were state-of-the-art home heating units. A large, comfortable kitchen designed and equipped for functionality and not show. The place is homey in a take-your-home-seriously-but-don’t-take-your-stuff-too-seriously sort of way.
My wife and I have lived here for about 25 years, and in this Calloway County house, we have built a happy life, reared our twin daughters, and put off any serious remodeling until it could no longer reasonably be avoided. Until recently, what few improvements that had been made to the place had been made by me. They, too, are about what you would expect. Of the few skills I possess, carpentry is not among them.
Most things had become outdated, and a few things were beginning not to work, so we spent the last few months of 2020 and the opening weeks of 2021 basically living with carpenters. Plumbers and electricians ducked in and out but rarely stayed long. However, our carpenters, Dave and Shannon, were here most mornings at 7. They have been delightful housemates: skilled, professional, efficient, polite and courteous. They also made a mess, which was unavoidable but also surprisingly enlightening.
Example: At one point in the process, my wife and I decided to redo the pantry, which never really was a pantry but a closet lined with rickety shelving and stuffed with a mishmash of gear and goodies—everything from broken fishing tackle to past-its-use-by-date food items. A bucket of spinning reels and parts of spinning reels, and a box of undeveloped 35mm film. Fly rods and assorted reels; some cased, others not; some lined, others empty. Raincoats and muck boots. Hats and caps. Bottled water and sale-rack wine. A turkey-hunting vest with no fewer than four mouth and two box calls crammed into various pockets. An envelope of receipts from the 2013-2014 tax year. Canned tomatoes. Water chestnuts. A jar of pickles. Two bags of whole-bean coffee. A soft-sided shotgun case. A cigar box of yet-to-be-sorted memories from the home of my deceased brother. A portable fly-tying vise with a missing tension screw. Two wooden bowls cut by a long-deceased and much-beloved uncle, his initials shakily cut into each. Another wooden bowl purchased from a street vendor in Dakar. A set of .030 oversized piston rings for Ford 4-cylinder engines from 1928-1934.
While shoveling out this hovel and readying it for the carpenters to do their work, one of the last items excavated was a cardboard box from the corner of a top shelf. In it were a pair of child-size Cabela’s neoprene boot-foot waders. The left knee had been patched—a repair I’d hastily made nearly two decades ago in a motel in Wawa, Ontario, not far from Lake Superior Provincial Park and the Sand River, where my daughter Sarah and I had spent the day catching brook trout barely big enough to hold. The crud that’d been smeared across the waders’ chest could have been fish offal or dregs from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was that kind of trip.
The child who fit the waders is a woman now. She still likes to fish, and she’s still good at it.
My wife walked in.
“Are those Sarah’s waders!?”
I nodded.
“Where did you find them?”
“In a box on the top shelf.”
She took them from me and turned them over in her hands, running her fingers over the patch, which was loose at one corner.
“What are you going to do with them?”
It was a strangely emotional moment. Lives become cluttered with the stuff nobody wants but nobody wants to get rid of.
I glanced at the box I’d designated for items destined for Goodwill. It was about half full—a few pieces of clothing, books, one of the raincoats and a tennis racket.
“I think I’ll keep ’em for a while longer.”