Not so pretty, eh? The other side isn't much better. It has a painting of two grandmotherly red roses. I won't be telling you how old this thing is.
My old trash can has the names and phone numbers of friends from my past - phone numbers in the days before they became so long that a person could forget who they were calling before they got to the last number.
Barbara and Ken were our next-door neighbors. They really were perfect like Barbie and Ken. I babysat for them while they went out in their sporty white convertible. I was a little young to babysit, but I had my mom next door if I needed her. I got paid 35 cents an hour.
Notice in the bottom right-hand corner: the Beach Boys' address. Why the Beach Boys? They were certainly not my favorite group - or even in my top ten favorites. Sometimes there's no explaining a pre-pubescent...
See Leslie's phone number? She was my best friend in late grade school/early junior high. She had some kind of problem where she had to wear a full body brace all of her life. She died right after I turned 14, not long after I moved to Colorado. I didn't know that when I said goodbye before moving that it would really be THE last time. Forever.
Now that I think about it, after moving away, I never saw any of the other people whose names are on my pink, metal can, either. Many deaths.
Wow! I just googled the numbers and found that some of them still belong to the same families! After... a humongous amount of years!
Now that I know that valuable piece of information, I think that I should paint this can a color that complements my office and recycle the past.
"I don't think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking there's some kind of change." Bob Dylan
"The past is past, the future not yet risen, and even the present thought, as we experience it, becomes the past. The only thing we really have is nowness, is now." - Soygal Rinpoche
I like the idea of the phone numbers on the bin ... it's a piece of history though I think.
ReplyDeleteWho was it who said "The past is a foreign country"
Ah ... good old Google ...
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
Leslie Poles Hartley quote (English Writer, 1895-1972)
How do you google a 5-digit phone number - did they just have a two-digit code added to the front of them? Anyway, this was really neat, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteMy mom told me stories about the phone at her house being a party line shared by several houses on the block and you'd pick up the phone and some neighbor lady would yell at you for spying on her conversation.
I really like the Leslie Poles Hartley quote. :)
ReplyDeleteIt amazes me that you would still have that around... and remember the numbers and who they are!
~*
Dancing,
ReplyDeleteGreat quote! They really do do things differently there, don't they?
Otowi,
ReplyDeleteThere was a prefix, but we didn't have to use it in the olden days. I remember it, though. (Don't ask me why, since we never used it!)
Can you imagine party lines now??? That would change our culture quite a bit!
Chani,
ReplyDeleteIt looks like I lost my nickname - AND my first response to you!
Anyway, as I was saying...
The only reason that I have the trash can is because my parents don't ever get rid of anything so it was down in their basement. I would never have moved that with me through all of these years!
I have a pretty poor memory, except for two things - phone numbers and people. Don't ask me about when something happened, even if it was only yesterday. I have no memory for time.
Wow! What a find!
ReplyDeleteNo, Carol, don't repaint it. Put that can some place safe so that an archeologist can find it a thousand years from now and spend her career deciphering it.
You're right, Nick. Someone could have a heyday trying to figure it out!
ReplyDeleteCarol, I love the way your can looks. As is. At least this side of it. I don't know what I'd think about the grandmotherly roses.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of phone numbers, I can remember when we didn't dial numbers but actually spoke them to an operator, or at least I heard my parents do that. I can hear my parents calling the Wakefield Cleaners by saying to the operator, "5 please." That was the cleaner's phone number--5. Talk about a simpler day.
Hey San,
ReplyDeleteWow! You remember times when the operator got your call through? And with only one number? I saw that on Lassie, but I never had that experience. Very cool!
For an artist to like my trash can... well, that says a lot. I guess that I have to keep it. ;-)
This was when I was preschool and we lived in a rural area. But, yes, it happened! Just like on Lassie! If you saw it on TV, you know it's for real!
ReplyDelete