A tip of the cap to Joyce Wadler, writing for The New York Times, who penned an article last week so named. It gives me a point of departure for my blog this morning.
I can’t tell you how often heirloom inheritors try to rope us in to the classic dilemma- what to do with something that is not really good enough to keep but seems too good to throw away. Presumably, if it was good enough for Grandma, it must surely be good enough for Chappell & McCullar. Casting my mind back through our entire tenure in this business, I can’t remember a single instance where we were even tempted to look at something so offered, much less acquire it. We are as gentle as we can be, albeit firm in our expressions of disinterest. We have had to be firm, because a modest demur was never enough. Anything short of a well enunciated ‘No’ always begged some sort of rejoinder from the person who proffered the item(s), something to the tune of ‘But my grandmother always said this was (pick one) valuable; important; or just like one in Winterthur.’
With Miss Wadler’s article, and given the frequency with which we are offered heirlooms, I’ve considered, in order to give myself a frame of reference on the matter, how many heirlooms I’m possessed of. The short answer is, not many. The only one I can think of immediately, since I’ve just seen it within the last hour, is a 19th century shaving mug that holds my toothbrush. Pretty, with a painted on eagle and the initials ‘F.O.E.’- not to signify a redoubtable ancestor, but short for ‘Fraternal Order of Eagles.’ I have this because it is a nice, and useful, object. It was given me by my grandmother, with no other provenance. Otherwise, what were family possessions I’ve off loaded to my sister, who has then parceled them out amongst her four children. Mind you, my clan has plenty of material accretions of the heirloom variety, none of which has any particular value apart from the sentimental.
And that- sentiment- is what swamps us when it comes to determining the final heirloom solution. Anything given me by my Grandmother Chappell, for years, held the value of a relic. It finally occurred to me that veneration of an object hindered my enjoyment of it and, at the end of the day, didn’t function to either enhance or diminish my memories of Grandma. Mind you, I’m not suggesting carting one’s family heritage to the dump. Family history is important, for those who find it so, but no one should be the keeper of the flame if there is no flame to keep. The poorly painted portrait of an unknown ancestor and the uncomfortable sofa that gives off a mohair smell even on a cold day is not in the same class as a handwritten, first person account of Pickett’s Charge.
Still, it is not easy to dissemble sentiment, witness the loads and loads of only modestly valuable objects moldering away in innumerable garages in this country, not to mention the thousands of acres of min-storage facilities- how much of American material culture survives out of sentiment?
No answers here, I’m afraid, so those of you with heirlooms, even of pseudo-iconic status, will have to sort them out the best way you know how. What I’ve concluded in the last few minutes, however, is how important heirlooms are, even when they are not. Offering them to us is, I’m thinking, a real compliment, sort of in the way one might be forced to offer a beloved dog to a hoped for good home. Thanks, you sentimental heirloom inheritors, for thinking of Chappell & McCullar as a good home.