In Praise of Old Things

I’m not old yet. There is something to be said for old things, though. I’m not just talking about twelve-year aged single malt scotch, although that smoky, thick taste has its appeal to some. Twinkies aside, not everything old is good: not ice cream that has acquired its own layer of permafrost, not sidewalks whose cracks, puddles and tectonic shifts are mere trips for anyone on wheels or twelve-year old scotch, not even old televisions with predictable channels and a familiar clicker with a volume button that sticks and the numeral 7 that doesn’t work at all. Old laptops, not good. Old cellphones with a battery life of half a phone call, not good. Old glasses, not good. Old textbooks, old maps, and old towels – not worth saving unless they begin a second life as a prop, background for a paper collage or a rag for washing cars.

There is something to be said for old things, though, almost anything that is cared for, sharpened, painted, oiled, or cleaned. Quite a list could be compiled: guitars, violins and pianos; jeans and boots, watches and jewelry, classic novels, and an occasional lawnmower. I am currently the proud owner of a 1940 Sears push mower inherited from Ann’s grandfather. It is easy to push, quiet, safer than my old runaway Toro, and perfect for the small yard we now have. It works, and as long as I keep it oiled and sharpened it hasn’t worn out its useful life. I especially appreciate the fact that it never kicks gravel and nut husks out a side vent at a hundred miles an hour toward one’s car. It will measure up any day to the previous four power mowers I’ve owned and used until they self-destructed in their teens.

A few old things deserve special attention, I believe.

My car, which I have dutifully serviced according to the schedule, now has 120,000 miles on it and runs like it was new. I need to fix a scratch in one door where a stump slid into me when I was out in the woods of the Upper Peninsula, but other than that, its four-wheel drive, four cylinder engine, sweet air conditioning, and purr when idling tell me there is no reason to replace it. Besides, it holds a lot of camping gear, fishing rods, and even a canoe on its rack with perfect ease. When I’m out on the streams, I distrust a fisherman who comes by in the latest Land Rover or Crossover. Until they’re broken in or earn some respect with a few dings, those cars are not suitable as fish-mobiles.

Our old house, a solid brick fortress build in 1925, has earned my respect. It was generally well cared for by its previous two owners who did a few curious things to it but kept as much original as possible. The hardwood floors are still smooth, well-grained, and mostly unscratched. After a cleaning, the fireplace works. The three-season porch is wonderful in the summer. The towering ash out front and the nearly as old pin oak out back are exactly the right height. (Please permit me a small joke.) Somehow our house came with the most wonderful neighbors who are already old friends, and we’ve only been in Madison two years. By comparison, our other houses, much newer and more modern, had basic flaws: cold downstairs, hot upstairs, a noisy furnace just below a master bedroom, air conditioning that could never be regulated well, and worst of all, they were in a neighboorhood where riding a bike was a death race; highway and air traffic from O’Hare fifteen miles away sounded like flame throwers had suddenly gone on sale. We could walk to Mosquito Park at the end of the block, and that was it. There were bike paths in Schaumburg, but you had to mount your bike on the back of your car and drive to them. Once you were on the forest preserve path you regularly received dirty looks when your passing interrupted drug deals. Our new old house is so much better. Yes, we replaced the wiring and kitchen and bathroom, and put in some air conditioning, but we had to do that in our newer old houses as well. An old house is like a favorite uncle. It has character and a happy story.

Old friends. Yes, they deserve special attention as well. There is something to be said for a group of people surviving twelve years with the same Catholic nuns as teachers, some of whom were the most inspirational masters possible, and others should have been tinsmiths or road graders. The latter were very good at cutting things up and bulldozing anything not perfectly flat. The former brought out what was good in us. That good survives. One of the interesting things about Facebook is that its re-connections remind us of who we are, and that hasn’t changed much. The brilliant ones are still brilliant. The kind ones are still kind. The smart alecks have softened a little but still follow the trajectory of kindergarten.

The actual number of years required for someone to become an old friend is variable, probably the same way time is flexible. Some friends you’ve known all your life, even though you just met them two years ago. When you reconnect with an old friend you haven’t seen in years, the time in between doesn’t matter, sometimes as if it never passed at all. Anyone who has gone through a divorce knows that relationships never end, not even when we want them to.

Old things remind us that we belong somewhere. The light switch you can find in the dark, the third fret on your guitar, middle C on your piano, the junk drawer in the kitchen where you know there will be the screwdriver or a rubber band you need – these are important old things. They also tell us something important about ourselves. In themselves, they mean nothing. A screwdriver is a screwdriver; a coffee mug is a coffee mug, but the tool or the coffee mug handed down from your father means something. We put that meaning into it. The mug is about us, I and my father, not about the coffee or the color or heft. As Shakespeare (or perhaps the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere?) wrote, it is thinking that makes a thing so. That is true of us, as well. We are what we think we are or, sadly for the weak among us, what we allow others to tell us we are.

I look forward to the day when I become an old thing in spite of the aches, health issues, and inevitable feeling that I have been left behind. I look forward to it because for someone else I will be the light switch she can reach in the dark, the coffee mug with just the right sized handle, the engine with 120,000 miles that still purrs, and the book of stories that are funny, interesting, sometimes sad and always readable. That book will be underlined throughout and annotated in the margins. It will have a happy ending.

Before that happens, I plan to visit the old things to remind them I’m still here: the pond at Konarcik Park outside Waterloo, the spring run at Montauk State Park with its gravel and watercress, Wrigley Field, Busch Stadium, Hubbard Street Diner with its chocolate-topped cheesecake, Disneyworld with grandchildren, Agate Falls in the Upper Peninsula. The list is too long and too personal. I think it should include trespassing at Camp Vandevanter west of Waterloo where we planted a whole hillside with pine seedlings when we were Boy Scouts. I’d like to see those trees, now that they are 50.

Even more fun will be to see the old things I haven’t met yet: Bleak House by Charles Dickens, some Agatha Christie I’ve missed, another season of Downton Abbey (yes the end of the last season was tragic, but no one loves only once), next year’s snows, another season of football at Camp Randall stadium with its raucous student section who always sing “Sweet Caroline” loud and a capella after the music stops and jump around after the third quarter. I can’t wait for the next Mumford and Sons album, their banjo, acoustic guitar, and base drum stomp reminding me that old-style music is still kicking. This is how it is, or as Ann says, whenever anyone asks her how’s she’s doing, “Good, mostly.” Old is good – mostly.