OF SPOONS

5 September, 2014

Houston

"He was a most peculiar man…"- Simon & Garfunkel song

No matter who you are or where you live, no doubt you know someone who is a "collector" of something. Maybe that person collects more than one kind of thing. More than likely you know more than one collector. 

A "collector" is not a hoarder, not by any means - at least not in the regular sense. There is a specific reason why a person will collect dolls, old records, or vintage wine. Often items of a kind are amassed for purely monetary value. Others because certain items remind that person of a time gone by. Sometimes it is to show off to others that they have whatever object. Sometimes it is possession for the sake of possession.

Perhaps the urge to collect is an primeval instinct - leftover from the prehistoric days when our ancestors were supposedly rat-like mammals, literally squirreling away nuts for the winter. Their very survival indeed depended upon how much food was collected and stored.

Nowadays, collecting is not only prevalent, it is actually encouraged. There are stamp, coin, banknote, bottle, beer can, shot glass, and hundreds of other collections - the list is endless. 

1963

When I lived in Parkchester apartments in New Orleans, we had a downstairs neighbor who collected spoons. I could relate: I used to buy a little souvenir spoon from most of the many different places I went, until I just tired of it.

Mr M. was a representative of a meat company, and quite reminded me of a comics character named Jiggs - a short, bald, meek little man who shrunk whenever his wife spoke, and said: "Yes, Dear…" whenever he was ordered to do something. Other than that, I thought him a most peculiar man.

Mr. & Mrs. M lived in the apartment just beneath ours. When they moved in, I took great delight in the fact that they had a little Dachund. After Mrs. M. invited me, I sometimes would go downstairs to play, and did so only when the dog wasn't under the bed. When she was there, I learned quickly, not to mess with her. If I did, she would show her teeth and growl at me. This was her way of saying: "Go away! Don't bother me!" Later in life I had all too many of those moments, as well.

On one visit, Mrs. M was sorting a few dozen antique spoons, which she kept in a wooden chest. It was her spoon collection, and she took great delight when I asked her about it. 

She patiently showed them to me with great pride, as if introducing me one-by-one to members of her family, saving the most precious ones for the end. She told me that she indeed was saving the best for last, and built up for a big surprise.

When all but one of the spoons had been taken from the chest, there remained just one final utensil. 

She picked it up carefully, and examined it with great awe and reverence. 

It was an antique silver soup spoon that was well-worn. It was neither beautiful nor ornate as all of the others previously shown me had been, yet it was plain to see Mrs. M held this particular spoon as her most prized of possessions. 

She then held the spoon aloft, almost as a priest would hold a chalice up before worshipers at a Catholic Mass. Then she told me, an an almost melodramatic manner:

"This is the spoon…"

(She paused for effect.)

"This is the spoon..." She repeated, building up suspense.

I replied: "That's the spoon?"

(I was mocking her, without her knowing it. I was 11 years old at the time.)

"This is the spoon..." She said for the third time, paused again, and continued in a most Southern of Southern drawls: " that was owned... by Jeffasan ...Davis's  ... SISTA!"

Now, Jefferson Davis was the only president of the Confederate States of America - that much I knew, and two years later I toured his mansion in Biloxi, Mississippi. I never heard that he had a sister, nor did I see any spoons similar to the one shown me. But I most assuredly remembered that spoon as I admired the antique items on display in Beauvoir. 

Later in in life, when troubles got to me, I would try to get out of the general flow of things and just abide in peace - even if it was for a few minutes, only to have somebody come out of the blue and mess with me - just because. I thought about that solace-seeking dachshund and wish I could just bare my teeth and growl, and people would leave me be for awhile. After all, it works for dogs.

Whenever I'd read the comic strip Jiggs in the Sunday newspaper, I thought about poor, meek Mr. M and how he'd give his battleaxe wife a wide berth. I've seen others like him here and there, and always felt sorry for them. 

In future years, every once in awhile in my travels, I'd come across some special spoon - one that was different in some way from all the others. When I would, I'd recall that most peculiar woman who singled out a worn, nondescript, piece of silverwear belonging to a long-deceased sister of an ex-Confederate president, and dramatically made it special.

When Mrs. M passed away, as by now most surely she has, as all this happened over fifty years ago, no doubt her belongings will have been donated to charity, and the worn silver spoon will no longer have its story. It will no longer be special. Devoid of the claim to fame it once had, it will just be a worn-out old silver spoon, and perhaps will be melted down to be used for some other, more modern and no-doubt less celebrated purpose.

Yet for a brief moment in time, it gave a peculiar lady an immense amount of pleasure by merely being in her possession, and nothing more, except, perhaps to show it off to an occasional guest - even to an 11-year-old boy.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. 

_______________________________

After publishing this to my blog, I did a Google search and found the following comment, made by someone who identifies himself only as "Old Redneck."

I quote:

"The son of one of Jeff Davis's cousins married my great-grandmother's sister and I own a single sterling silver spoon that was a wedding gift to them.  Family legend says the spoon once belonged to Ol' Jeff Davis himself, though I have found several family legends to be less than accurate."

NOTES: Jefferson Davis indeed had a sister, Anna Elizabeth Smith. 

Silver spoons were highly prized in earlier times, and passed down as heirlooms to family members.

To this day, every once in awhile I will come across a strange or curious spoon, and will, just for fun, repeat the sacred pronouncement that peculiar lady made so many years ago: "This is the spoon... this is the spoon... This is the spoon... that was owned...by Jeffason...Davis's... SISTA!"