My Own Personal Museum
“My mother’s sold the piano last night. I tried to hide the fact that I’m a mess about it, but I am. I wish I could just give her some money and say: ‘here, I’ll buy the piano and put it in storage.’ But I can’t do that. I can’t believe she’s selling it, but I guess it’s just a piano.”
That’s the voice of my buddy, above. And I know why he’s such a wreck. In fact, I’m a wreck about his piano, too. Even I have some great memories of that piano, and I didn’t grow up with it. We’re all trying to hang on to the past. In daydreams, I fantasize about building a great museum of my life, and walking an imaginary grandchild through it.
“See that? That’s the milking stool where my grandfather taught me how to milk a cow. See the piece of string around one leg of the stool? Well, there was one cow that kicked, I think she was in stanchion four or six, and what you did for that cow was you tied her tail to her leg, that way she wouldn’t kick. Grandpa tried to teach me how to tie the string around the cow’s leg, so’s I could milk that cow myself, but I was too scared that cow would kick me while I was tying the string. So Grandpa always milked that cow.
“There’s the plaster of paris handprint I did in nursery school. And here’s the construction paper hand traced turkey I made in 2nd grade. That was just a few years later, see? See how much your grandfather grew in just a few years? You’ll grow that much too. When we get home we’ll go to the store and get some plaster of Paris and make a handprint for you, too.
“Here’s the first tractor I learned how to drive. It’s a Kubota. That was the first foreign built tractor your great grandfather ever bought, because John Deere didn’t make a tractor that fit between the rows on the Christmas tree farm, and Ford was building their tractors in Japan anyway. I liked to pretend it was a Honda ATC, which was popular at that time.
“Here’s the soccer ball from the only goal I ever scored in Rec Council soccer. Here’s the busted bike wheel from the time I got run over by a truck. Yes, it hurt. It hurt a lot. That’s why you’re going to promise me never to go out on a bike with brakes that don’t work. You promise? Good.
“Here’s all the things I ever said that I wished I could take back. I got them all back. I put them all in a jar so they can’t hurt anyone anymore. See that one, where I told the guy on my high school basketball team that when I saw ‘Hoosiers’ and that it reminded me of our team except in the movie they won. That tortured me for years. Remember, little guy, try to say nice things to people. You only get one shot, as far as I know.”
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