I am drawn by nature to old objects of all kinds. I bought a hundred year old house, and have some hundred year old furniture. When remodeling, we put real tung and groove bead board on the walls, and there came the time I had to have an old mandolin. In its case were documents tracing the previous owner back to 1982. I’ve often fantasized on who might have owned it, and what songs were played on it when it was new.
My grandmother was a young woman when the Spanish flu hit in 1918. Had stories that only later did I realize we’re just her slice of experience living in an isolated rural area. The most poinient were of WWI veterans who survived only to come home and die of the flu. So I got out my A1 and again pondered who might have first bought it, and what might have been the experiences of those who had played it. Did it provide comfort in troubled times as it is again today?
Oh, if only it could talk.
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