Musings: Souvenirs

~by Mark Blackwell

We are once again entering the depths of winter. Traditionally, this is a time of rest from the long summer days of laboring in the garden, and the long early autumn afternoons slaving in a hot kitchen, canning, and preserving the garden’s bounty.

Now is a time of rest from putting the garden to bed for the winter, cleaning the gutters and raking fall leaves. A time of rest from cutting and hauling and splitting and stacking cords of firewood that will inevitably run out before the winter does.

This is the season where we shrug off the hullabaloo of the holidays, throw another log on the fire, sit back in an easy chair, and let our minds drift forward in anticipation of spring seed catalogs and back to past pleasures and accomplishments.

I know that when I settle down to do some serious reminiscing I don’t have to go far for inspiration. All I must do is just look around the house at the different furnishings, pictures hanging on the walls, books, and miscellany on the bookcase. It seems like everything I have collected has a story and prompts a memory. I guess you could just lump all these things under the heading “souvenirs of a long, strange trip.”

I imagine that about everybody (except those seduced by the “decluttering” cult) has a collection of souvenirs. There are folks like me (border-line hoarders) who live in museums of our own making.

While I am writing this article, I can see the turn-ofthe-twentieth-century stereoscope that reminds me of childhood afternoons when I visited various older folks. To keep me seen but not heard, they would let me peruse their collections of 3-D images of past times and exotic places. Later in the 1950s, I would be (and still am) the happy owner of an updated stereoscope called a ViewMaster—and now it’s an antique.

Some souvenirs don’t just make you recall personal times and events, they can be time machines. Behind me sits a Victrola from the nineteen-teens given to me in about 1961 or 1962. With it came a collection of 78 rpm records. Together they represented a time machine of music and culture from forty years before.

From those old 78s I gained an appreciation for Bix Beiderbecke and early jazz. Listening to Bing Crosby and the Happiness Boys vocalizing with the Paul Whiteman band took me back to a time when young folks living in the sticks could be entertained by the best music the big cities had to offer (before the Internet).

The light in this room comes from a beautiful pottery lamp made by my incredibly talented sister in-law. My coffee cup reminds me of Nashville, where it was made by a potter friend. I have a print of a painting of a schooner ship under full sail hanging on the wall. It was a Woolworth item from the 1930s or before. I got it from my grandparents’ house where it hung when I was growing up.

This museum that I call “my office” is filled with music. I have found that music and smells are two things that can evoke memories that are amazingly vivid. And for me music can take me back to the house I grew up in. The radio was going about all the time with soap operas, adventure stories, and pop songs.

I remember the house we were living in when I first heard Patty Page singing, “How Much is that Doggie in the Window?” I remember the kitchen with the yellow formica and chrome dinette set, where the radio, an ivory Sears Silvertone, sat on the refrigerator. Often the aroma of fresh baked brownies was coming from the oven.

While the radio introduced me to pop tunes and later rock ’n’ roll, it was TV that taught me about early jazz and classical music. The soundtracks of the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons from the 1930s and 40s got me to appreciate the jazz of that era. And I’m sure I’m not the only person whose initiation to classical music was Bugs Bunny cartoons.

I dare anybody to close their eyes, hear the William Tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger. When that happens, I can see myself sitting cross-legged on the living room carpet, waiting for Silver to rear up and hear that famous exclamation, “Hi-Yo Silver! Away.”

Those things, and many more, are the souvenirs that I have picked up along the way.

So, we can all say that our souvenirs are keys that open gateways to our personal pasts. They allow us to revisit our past selves, friends and relatives who are no longer with us, old adventures, sweet moments, and the world as it once was.

Oh, and the next time you’re visiting Nashville don’t forget to remember to pick up a souvenir of Brown County.