Heck Of A Guy

Items From Other Rooms Now On-line
Churns, China, Figurines, Miniature Bottles

Photos of another group of those doodads, antiques, gadgets, widgets, junk, tchotchkes, collectibles, oddities, curios, odds, ends, and much, much more that fill my mother’s home are now available for viewing.

A more accurate but also more awkward title for this category would be “Items From Areas Of Mom's Home Other Than The Rooms Listed In The Other Family Home Photo Safari Posts.” These are items located in the hallways, stairwells, bathrooms, the guest bedroom, etc of Mom's home.

I’m especially fond of the glass jar butter churns, one of the few nostalgic collectibles I distinctly remember being employed in my childhood home. I have no memory, for example, of oil lamps, two man saws, ice tongs, or even the dash butter churns being used.¹

One photo, I see now, requires further explanation. While many items are, obviously, displayed as parts of a collection, some pieces aren’t formally displayed but have been accumulated in quantities far beyond the level that would be routinely needed for utility’s sake. To provide a sense of this phenomenon, I have included a photo of the blankets and quilts Mom keeps stacked in the guest bedroom - other than the covers already on the bed. Ostensibly, these are made available in case the temperature drops precipitously during the night. Given that I have visited my parents’ home as an adult many, many times during the winter without needing that extra dozen quilts, I think it fair to consider these quilts one of her “hidden collections.”

Mom’s Collectibles - Index & Description Page

The full story of my mother’s houseful of collectibles and its metaphysical implications and links to all published photos of items from her home can be found at Mom’s Collectibles - Index & Description Page

The Photos

All of the Family Home Photo Safari pictures were taken by me during our Thanksgiving 2007 trip to Mom's home. The vistas on the title panels of the photo displays depict Table Rock Lake as seen from the cabin’s deck during the same Thanksgiving 2007 visit.

I hope you enjoy viewing these photos as much as I enjoyed photographing my parents’ collectibles and as much as my mother and father enjoyed finding and displaying them.

The photos of the items found in hallways, stairways, and transitional areas are available at Mom's Other Room.

Coming Attractions: Photos of the final room of Mom's collectibles, those from the Living Room, should be posted later this week.

Footnotes

1. The home in which my family lived for the first ten years of my life, however, was heated by a wood burning stove that was re-installed each winter and removed each spring.↩

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Basement Items, Part II Now On-line
Oil Lamps, Chinese Spoons, Stuffed Animals, Promotionals

Photos of another group of those doodads, antiques, gadgets, widgets, junk, tchotchkes, collectibles, oddities, curios, odds, ends, and much, much more that fill my mother’s home are now available for viewing.

This is the second half of the items found in Mom's basement. Most of the photos show some of the 250-350 (my estimate) oil lamps of all sizes, colors, conditions on display in the house. One group of these is shown in the graphic atop this post.

In The Family Home Photo Safari: Basement Items Part I, I noted that the basement has the most hidden treasures, almost none of which were captured in last year’s photo expedition. To give a flavor of items that have been in sealed boxes for the past several years, I chose a couple of boxes (based on ease of access) and photographed the contents. Those shots are part of today’s set.

Some of the photos are annotated to explain the difficulties I encountered in photographing certain areas and how I tried to address these problems.

Mom's Collectibles - Index & Description Page

The full story of my mother’s houseful of collectibles and its metaphysical implications and links to all published photos of items from her home can be found at Mom's Collectibles - Index & Description Page

The Photos

All of the Family Home Photo Safari pictures were taken by me during our Thanksgiving 2007 trip to Mom’s home. The vistas on the title panels of the photo displays depict Table Rock Lake as seen from the cabin’s deck during the same Thanksgiving 2007 visit.

I hope you enjoy viewing these photos as much as I enjoyed photographing my parents’ collectibles and as much as my mother and father enjoyed finding and displaying them.

The photos of the basement items are available at Mom's Basement - Part 2

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Basement Items Now On-line: Cider Press, Churns, Wrenches, Saws, Bee Smokers, Block & Tackles, Ironware

Photos of another group of those doodads, antiques, gadgets, widgets, junk, tchotchkes, collectibles, oddities, curios, odds, ends, and much, much more that fill my mother’s home are now available for viewing.

If the living room contains my mother’s most impressive collections,¹ the basement has the most hidden treasures, almost none of which were captured in last year’s photo expedition. And, as the “Part I” of today’s title indicates, the number of collectibles in this area warrant another group of photos that will be posted at a later date.

Further, much of the material in the basement is stashed in boxes which I had neither the time or energy to open. I did empty one or two randomly chosen containers and will include photos of the contents in “Basement, The Sequel” to give a flavor of what awaits a more aggressive explorer in the still unexplored territory of my Motherland.

Tools, churns, and ironware predominate in this group, which contains the item that is my personal favorite of all those in the house - the handsome bee smoker featured atop this post.

Mom's Collectibles - Index & Description Page

The full story of my mother’s houseful of collectibles and its metaphysical implications and links to all published photos of items from her home can be found at Mom's Collectibles - Index & Description Page

The Photos

All of the Family Home Photo Safari pictures were taken by me during our Thanksgiving 2007 trip to Mom's home. The vistas on the title panels of the photo displays depict Table Rock Lake as seen from the cabin’s deck during the same Thanksgiving 2007 visit.

I hope you enjoy viewing these photos as much as I enjoyed photographing my parents’ collectibles and as much as my mother and father enjoyed finding and displaying them.

The photos of the basement items are available at Mom's Basement - Part I

Footnotes

1. The living room items will be featured in an upcoming post↩

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Loft Items Now On-line - Colanders, Buttons, Scrub Boards, and Sewing Supplies

Photos of another group of those doodads, antiques, gadgets, widgets, junk, tchotchkes, collectibles, oddities, curios, odds, ends, and much, much more that line the walls and reside in the geological layers of miscellanea that arise from nearly every table and shelf as well as much of the floor space in my mother’s home in the the Ozarks are now available for viewing .

The loft of my mother’s home is filled with sewing and crafts supplies as well as collectibles. Because of her arthritis and other medical problems, climbing the stairs to the loft is an arduous task and not one often undertaken. Consequently, this area is almost always in disarray and so I have only a few images of the contents of the loft although there are piles, boxes, and sacks of material,¹ sequins, zippers, craft kits and supplies, clothing patterns, books, scissors, skeins of yarn, crochet and knitting needles, and, as always, more.

The photos of my mother's loft can be found at Now On-line Loft

New Display Format, New Index Page

I’ve changed the methodology used to display the photos. The above link for the photos of the loft items, for example, directs one to a HTML template produced by Google Picasa software which loads faster, is easier to view, and is more aesthetically pleasing than the styles previously used. The new format is available for the photos referenced in today’s post, and I have also converted the previously published photos of the items from the bedroom and deck to this format.

I’ve also established a central index page for these photos of my mother’s collectibles at Mom's Collectibles - Index & Description Page. This page contains the narrative about my parents’ accumulation of miscellany excerpted from previous posts and links to all the published groups of photos.

Because more than 90% of visitors to the Heck of a Guy site in any 30-day period are first-timers, I try to include enough information such that someone who, for example, happens onto today’s posting in his or her initial visit is oriented and has access to the back story. At the same time, I dislike bloating each post with core information that returning readers have already seen (repeatedly).

One tactic I’ve used to overcome this problem are boilerplate footnotes that explain the roles played by certain recurrent characters such as Julie² and recurrent references such as my AlignMap site.³ Similarly, this Mom’s Collectibles - Index & Description Page should provide the necessary information for newcomers without burdening ongoing readers with redundant content. It should also be a convenient reference for finding these photos in the future.

Footnotes

1. One of the Prodigal’s prize finds in his annual investigations of the treasures of the loft was blanketing material featuring the John Deere logo - in three styles. His grandmother fashioned blankets for him from this material that he used for years as a teenager↩
2. Julie Showalter was my much-beloved, fiercely smart, wickedly sexy wife and prize-winning writer, who died in 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. There are many other posts about her and her writing in this blog. For information, see Julie Showalter FAQ↩
3. AlignMap is my professional web site and blog that focus on patient compliance, also known as adherence to treatment↩

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