|
Salt And Pepper Shakers Have A Purpose |
By:
Baily Richards |
|
|
Have you ever stopped to reflect about the knickknacks and other items that were in the house that you grew up in? We recently helped my mother pack up the belongings of the home that she shared with my father for over fifty years. Mom moved to a senior apartment building. She picked all the items that she wanted to take with her and then asked my sisters and me to go through what was left and take what we wanted and the rest went to an estate sale broker. Our husbands were along as we went through the belongings. It was interesting how memories and emotions effected how my sisters and I saw some of the objects compared to how our husbands saw them. The items that caused the biggest rift were mom’s collection of salt and pepper shakers.
In the kitchen of the house we grew up in there was a window over the kitchen sink. There were corner shelves on each side of the window and on them mom had displayed her collection of salt and pepper shakers. Because of their location by the sink I would look at them every time I helped with dishes. The salt and pepper shakers were not filled with spices, they were collectables that mom bought and received as gifts through the years. Some of them were given to her as wedding gifts, so they were over fifty years old. When we started taking them off the shelves my sister’s and I were discussing if we should each take some of the salt and pepper shakers or leave them together as a set. My husband spoke up and said that he did not think we should take any of them because they were strange and some were in bad taste. The ones that he thought were in bad taste were the antique sets that depicted black people in traditional slavery dress. He asked me where I thought we would display these is our home. He said he found them offensive and gaudy. It was the first time that I looked at the salt and pepper shakers through the eyes of someone that had not grown up with them. When I stopped to think about the collection they were not something that I would want in our home, yet I had the emotional attachment to them from childhood.
There are so many items, foods, smells and sounds that trigger memories. After my husbands comments about the salt and pepper shakers I realized that I did not have to have a multitude of things from the home I grew up in. I only needed to have one or two small reminders to trigger all the thoughts and feelings of childhood. My oldest sister took the salt and pepper shakers. I took two serving dishes and a figurine that I had given to mom for her birthday one year. They hold good thoughts and memories of my younger years.
|
|
Article Source: http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article80839.html |
|
|
|
|
|
