Old Ties

April 1992
Old Ties
By Bob Coskrey

I like old people and old things, and I’m not even going to laugh when my “humor-in-everything” alter-ego interrupts with the remark, “aren’t they one and the same?” Because of course, they’re not, no more than young people are young things or middle-aged people, middle-aged things. I like the old things because they inspire my imagination. My grandmother’s rocking chair, even though it’s been reupholstered twice, still reminds me of her. I can “see” her rocking and crocheting in it, a few feet from me, as I am writing this.

My grandmother: Bobby, are you doing your homework?

Me: No, Da-da. (That’s what her grandchildren called her because, I think, that’s the first sound her initial grandchild uttered when he saw her.) I’m writing an article for a magazine called OMNIBUS.

Da-Da: Oooo, look how smart my Bobby is. He’s a writer for a big magazine.

Me: No, Da-da. It’s nothing like that. OMNIBUS is not a big magazine. In fact, I guess you could say it’s an almost esoteric little publication read mostly by a limited group of oddball people, or perhaps, an oddball group of limited people.

Da-Da: Ooooo, my Bobby is a little joker. (Laughing and resuming her crocheting marathon.)

Old people are full of old, cherished memories that tey love to talk about. But if there is a dearth of old people in your life, as in my case, then you have to opt for the “old things” and rely on your intellectual inventiveness and ability to recall.

I can remember Da-Da telling me about seeing a brick wall around her yard crumbling down during the great earthquake of 1886. She was 16 years old then. If she were alive now, she’d be 122, but unfortunately, she’s not, so I’m forced to resort to the “old thing” evoked, imagination-embellished memories. Aside from some aunts who don’t live in Charleston, I don’t have any other elderly family members who can mesmerize me with their personal remembrances. But I am fortuitous enough to know an elderly lady—a good friend’s mother—who is more than willing to regale my wife and myself with her always interesting recollections replete with visual aids: albums and hundreds of photographs. We don’t even know most of people in the albums, but it doesn’t matter at all. It’s somehow, quite fascinating to look at these old pictures of strange people standing next to their now antique Hudsons and Desotos, picnicking on the beach in their white shirts, wind-flapping gabardine pants, and all-concealing sunsuits. The dates written on the backs of the pictures—1920, 1923, 1930—so long ago you feel, illogically, that not only was everything so simple then, but that maybe it was actually black and white as well. You want to go home afterwards, take all the chromatic photographs you’ve saved over the past 30 years and mail them to Woody Allen for decolorizing.

There are probably thousands of these older citizens around, brimming over with interesting stories to tell, especially in an intriguing city like ours. I’ve interviewed some of them for a magazine, I’ve read about them in the paper, such as Philip Simmons, the venerable blacksmith and wrought iron artist. But being famous is not a requisite. One of the most interesting older persons I’ve known—though I knew him only in my childhood—was my cousin Jimmy’s uncle. Uncle Jack, we called him. He had served in World War I and had been a world traveler. He owned an ordinary little paint shop on King Street, but he had a room in his house on Charlotte Street that rivaled the Old Charleston Museum in the variety of its artifacts. The walls were festooned with spears, helmets, guns and other weapons that sent an impressionable 10-year-old like myself into pre-Disney World rapture. That entire house, for that matter, had a Smithsonian aura, with its dark, dank hallways, distant ceilings, unclaimed echoes and sarcophagean mustiness. Uncle Jack was a veritable artesian well font of stories. And although he had a more than adequate inventory of “old things” to stimulate my fantasizing faculties, his colorful narratives were always the main attraction.

Uncle Jack, however, did have one “old thing” that fascinated me beyond the others, and that was an old leather Morris chair. For the younger readers, a Morris chair is nothing more than an easy chair with an adjustable back and footrest. Presently, I guess we call them recliners, and having evolved to a plateau of décor chicness somewhat nearer to rattan than beanbag chair, I had just as soon have a plastic Elvis bust in my den than a recliner. But in those days, to sit—with Uncle Jack’s permission—in that old tan leather monstrosity, push the little button on the side and suddenly find oneself lying supine instead of sitting up, was as close to space age technology as anything I had ever encountered.

But Uncle Jack dies many years ago, and the old house has been restored by the present owners with the relics from Uncle Jack’s room, no doubt, being scattered among various family members. And I hope none of his “old things” have ended up in antique shops or worse, flea markets. Although, I enjoy browsing through these establishments and inhaling their exhilarating mustiness (after all, what better places to find “old things”?) I have mixed feelings about them.

There’s something a little melancholy about finding an old Captain’s Chair that somebody’s father sat in, a dining room table that a family of eight spent pre-radio and television hours swapping stories at, an old grandfather clock that bonged triumphantly on the day that a daughter got married. Even more agonizing are the abandoned cradles and toys, but without a doubt, the most devastating—at least to me, and I will admit that my thoughts and feelings are not always representative of the norm—are the antique picture frames of wood, leather, various metals, and even at times, silver. It’s not the frames themselves, but the actual photographs of actual people, as David Letterman might quip, that are the source of my consternation. Pictures of loved ones that should be on someone’s bureau or mantel. Parents and children, uncles, aunts and cousins, even pets, in poses ranging from strained acquiescence to unabashed devotion suddenly wrenched from the nurturing warmth of a home and put on freakish display in an alien environment to be leered at by boorish tourists or fondled and dropped by brattish children. A picture of an adoring mother with her baby juxtaposed next to a tobacco tarnished spittoon, an august and stern-faced grandfather next to a porcelain bed pan. It’s all a bit too much for me to stomach, and of course I always exacerbate my indignation by imagining that someone will purchase one of these pictures, unceremoniously discard the photograph and refill the exquisite frame with a color-tinted snapshot of Patrick Swayze or Dolly Parton.

There is a laser thin ray of hope, however, I recently discovered, as I was rescued, at least temporarily, from my “slough of despond” (“Pilgrims Progress,” John Bunyan, 1678) by “Cheers” Kirstie Alley. No, I am not hallucinating. Kirstie Alley, interviewed at her home on a Barbara Walters Special several weeks ago, was asked by Ms. Walters about a lovely, old, handsomely framed photograph of a wholesome, attractive woman on a cheat in her bedroom. It was a picture apparently taken in the late 40s and 50s. Ms. Walters: And this very attractive lady is your mother, no doubt?”

Ms. Alley’s matter-of-fact response, I’m sure, resulted in perhaps millions of American viewers spewing out their Budweisers and popcorn:

“No, that’s just a picture of a lady I bought because she looked like my idea of a mother.”

I, of course, was exultant. Here was a person, who quite obviously was affected by these old pictures just as I was. But instead of schlucking around in a self-absorbed morass of misery, as I had done, she had taken positive action, she had answered Hamlet’s question, she had “carped the diem.” She had recognized the heinous atrocity of forsaking the picture of a once-cherished loved one to the soul-less eternity of an antique shop, and she had righted the wrong by adopting the picture for her own.

So every Saturday now I pursue the confines of Charleston’s myriad antique shops and flea markets—yes, even the one in Ladson—purchasing pictures of these discarded and disenfranchised family photographs, and my rooms are filled with old photographs of “adopted” relatives.

Shopkeeper: A very nice selection, sir, probably the nicest frame in the house. Note the intricate acanthus designs in the corners. Shall I remove the photograph for you?

Me: Remove the photograph? Are you deranged? Look at the subjugating smile, those concerned brow furrows. This, sir, is my Uncle Tobias!

Shopkeeper, somewhat shocked: You mean this was an actual relative of yours. What a surreal coincidence!

Me: No, he was not a relative. I have never met him before, but I have just made him my uncle Tobias.

Shopkeeper: Very good sir. (Quickly wrapping the picture and fumbling anxiously with my change.) Have a nice day.

Me, leaving the shop: See you next Saturday, maybe.

Shopkeeper: Uh, we…we will be uh…closed next Saturday, sir. It’s us…uh…Michael Dee’s birthday.

But I don’t care they think. I have my mission now. In fact, I’m on the veritable “rool.” I have placed an ad in the “personals.”

“Elderly people desiring to share their memories, please write Bob, c/o OMNIBUS Magazine. Albums and old photographs a plus.”

I did receive a minor setback last week:

“Dear Mr. Coskrey:
Although we loved your very original idea for one of our shows to be called “People Who Like Old People And Old Things And Who Go Bonkers Over Abandoned Antique Family Photographs,” I am afraid we will not be able to produce the show. Our staff could not locate a single person in the entire US with similar interests, except, oddly enough, Kirstie Alley, and a guy in an institution, who is too highly medicated to be interviewed.
Thank you for your interest.
Sincerely,
Oprah Winfrey.
I am not discouraged. I still haven’t heard from Geraldo.