Nothing is lost
Pfewf!
How chaotic is your file system? Your storage system? Slides? Digital is easy. Negatives reside somewhere lost in my past. There were a lot of boxes of black and white negatives stored away somewhere.
When I started shooting slides, I began to develop my own not too long after. That was hell. Try to hold a water bath within a tenth of a degree for 30 minutes while the developing tank requires constant agitation. I bought cardboard mounts, ten thousand at a time. Heat sealed, I used our iron more than my wife.
Storage. At first it was fine. I stored box upon box in the top shelf of our bedroom closet….until space ran out. Then it was a closet – floor. Finally we build a custom cabinet. That was $$$. Hey! I was a neurosurgeon with a $$ budget. But even those drawers were eventually full. How many slides? Near to 110 thousand. Who’d think that would take so much space! I was cheap now. That last cabinet was simply too many $$.
So, I planned and built one. I had no experience building drawers. I borrowed a table saw. The kids pitched in. We built 26 drawers and a cabinet out on the deck in the NYC weather come what may.
To illustrate – I went on a search for the pictures of the project. To be sure I had not that long ago seen the pic of Jules on the deck helping. Aha! Find it?! Sure?! My organization is only as good as the information storage. I had scanned the picture/slide? Or… aha! Dammit. And this is funny. I took pictures of the new slide storage system with a digital camera. Oh! Rich! Digital to document film. We did this project in the summer of 2003. By the next summer I would be switched over 100% to digital with my purchase of the Nikon D70. Little did I know what was to come.
Meanwhile chaos again, as if you might care for my plight. The initial set of drawers was a built in. There have been a couple moves since then. 28 or so drawers sit in a closet again. Ha ha! And the cabinet I built sits in my office. 26 drawers built to last a lifetime storage of slides. It is half full of what was anticipated, the other drawers empty. Who knew the future and what would come of my slides? But, disorganized is the operative word. Operative? Ha! I still have dreams about doing surgery.
Something you do not need
Fuzzy lampshades. We bought a Hoosier cabinet from a couple – the guy looks like “Bernie.” It was eerie. We had so much in common. The husband and I came from NYC and swam on the high school team – different teams but NYC! Colleen and the wife were from DE with common experiences up and down the state. Hoosier cabinet – 2 million were made in the day – in Indiana, of course! They are valued by collectors. I did not know we were collecting… at least I did not end up with fuzzy lampshades. The Hoosier was something I did not think we needed. Wrong! What do I know?
Lazy Susan
Lazy Susan is a turntable device. It allows you to reach things in a corner cabinet that might otherwise be hard to reach. Nutley, my nut of a cat, likes to bang on the door and bounce it open. Then he climbs into the cabinet. What’s in your cabinet? We have to leave the door open lest he be trapped inside. Or, can he reverse engineer and get himself out?
Nutley
My cat Nutley, so named because he’s nuts, has taken to opening the cabinets and drawers. He bangs on the doors and drawers till they loosen and then he paws them open. Neat! … except when he paws and bangs on the hinge side of the doors. Then, his little trick won’t work. Nutley hasn’t quite worked out the calculus for that maneuver. Kind of smart, kind of dumb, nuts, that’s Nutley.
Stuff
At a certain age they tell you to downsize. You can’t take it with you. You are allowed to look. How about a Welsh chicken coop cupboard? Never seen one till now. I didn’t know I wanted one. This was a monster piece more than 10 foot wide. Put your dinner in the coop and you don’t have to go out later to catch it. Rabbit, chicken, it’s been done before. They wanted $thousands.
A small town. I can’t remember which. Go there. There is native American art. It’s a town of few stores. Few enough people find it. The prices are high. Why not? There’s simply very little traffic.
Garish porcelain? I neglected to image an oyster plate. We learned they come from France. The valuable collectable ones go for $hundreds. Now you know too. I don’t want one. I don’t much care to eat oysters. Green Hoosier glass? It’s not depression uranium glass. No value. About $9 on eBay. Just looking. I don’t have room on the shelf. I guess I’ll build some.
Two right hands
If you stop often enough you might be surprised. Hays, Kansas. We braked for antiques. It was far enough along in miles that we needed a break. You try to pick something good. It wasn’t particularly (good). In this little shop off the interstate a Scottish woman gave us a whole story of this piece she had acquired and shipped from Scotland. Religious symbolism was all over the piece. She described religious plants, symbols signifying the books of the bible, the carvings, and even Celtic influence. Jesus had two right hands? There was a representation of the Pieta. She was looking for a museum to purchase her treasure. I would agree. It should find an appropriate home. I did not ask the price.
Thread
These cabinet displays with their neat compartments were for sewing stores to retail sewing thread. Sewing has not been too popular these days. Or, I don’t go to sewing stores. Probably both facts are true. I was surprised to come across these cabinets. They sell for a lot of money. I’m not sure who wants one. I think that I would like to make one. They are neat drawers of about 2 inch height. I’ve been reading up on what it takes. Soon…
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