By Victor C. Kirk, Sr.
Each generation either purchases or passes on to the next items felt important to understand what was held close to one’s heart. In my family, among items passed on was a handmade quilt given to my grandmother as a wedding gift from her mother-in-law. It was made with a “Texas Star” perfectly placed in the center of the quilt. The “Texas Star” quilt was accompanied by a second nearly finished quilt begun by my grandmother, but the backing was done, and all else remained was hand stitching the randomly sized pieces that were to be placed at its front, but containing either hand cut or remnants of other quilts underway. I presumed that the quilting process included either cutting or collecting random pieces of cloth for further quilting projects.
A second group of items held close to my aunt was her silverware setting, neatly placed within the original container. This “silver setting” included cloth pockets to hold each knife, fork, and spoon. As she was an accomplished cook and managed a local diner in Detroit, family gatherings were important to her, so her collection included a Lilac tablecloth with napkins and silver napkin holders serving a table of 8.
For my part, I purchased either from estate sales or during travels in and out of state and abroad, items that maybe only my kinfolk would understand my purchase. From Haiti, a hand-carved wood container shaped like a bottle. Surprisingly, the wood-carved “bottle” would open to reveal a fifth of Haitian rum from the Barnnacot family distillers in Port-au-Prince. Other collectables included small faces carved from stone and mounted on an iron wire. From Pontiac, Michigan, among the items I collected included a rather large green round glass vase with carving details, giving the hand-blown item its distinctiveness as all sides were covered with etched or carved indentions. From an estate sale in Monroe, I coveted a two-foot-high “James Brown” statue that had a base with a button that, once “pushed”, the character would sway and sing “I feel good”. There were several persons at that estate sale that were eying the James Brown figure. My wife and I came early to view the actual item as the photo in the web page made the item even more “collectable’. We had never seen one before and the only items of a similar type were the usual “Santa Clause” items that had him swinging his belly from side to side while singing “Merry Christmas”. We did not haggle for the price of the “James Brown” item, got to the estate sale site early and when it opened, hightailed it to the James Brown item and purchased it outright for the asking price.
BUT, surprisingly, each item mentioned, among others, I have not dwelled on, e.g., all of my Prince, Michael Jackson, and Ohio Players LPs, and a but load of select CDs and DVDs, WERE STOLLEN FROM MY HOME during a quest to repair my bathroom. The verbal contract was awarded to a two-person team, the first of which was minority contractors I used and were selected from a well-known site used by smaller contractors for small jobs. You place on the website the work you need done, and a listing of available work teams would respond to your inquiry.
I am at fault for the loss. I had no idea that you should never leave the work site with workers in your home. My ignorance has no excuse, but surely I felt much too comfortable and thought a 15-minute return to Home Depot surely would be ok to do in the middle of the day. I was only 5 minutes or so from Home Depot.
This “thievery” was not anticipated. I was back home after nearly 50 years, and apparently could not have imagined what everybody else could and did. I did not have this problem in Baton Rouge or Alexandria.
I did not even tell my wife nor give any reason for moving to her home, as many items I adored and relished after our marriage.
I can only recall a statement from Forrest Gump – “Stupid is what stupid does”.
My tears during the day, over the years, only surface in my dreams when I think about what I lost, what it means to my family, and how brazen the thieves were. I only hope that by my “confession”, a reader will remember visiting someone’s home and noticing the “new items” that they proudly display and remark about the absolute stupidity of the homeowner owner it trusted that someone’s treasure would remain in their home – undisturbed. The next contractor or contractors will face an uphill battle, as my trust in the small business person is totally destroyed, along with my sense of self. Home is no longer as welcoming as I thought it would be. Now I must weigh the use of cameras all over our home in the event neither of us can remain in the home at all times.
