Artifacts

At my first newspaper stop, a fellow reporter told me she was off to interview Wavy Gravy. I had no idea who that was. "You know, from the Woodstock movie? The "we must be in heaven man?" That's him."

I instantly knew who she was talking about and always wished I could have tagged along.

 

I used to have tons of stuff that I’d kept from my past — yearbooks, bound editions of my college paper, bobbleheads from various events, commemorative Coke bottles from the first game in the Georgia Dome and the Carolina Panthers’ first game, my old clips, etc. All of it got left behind when I got divorced and moved out of the house and got a smaller place. I suspect the ex has long since tossed them.

I think I still have my credentials from the Super Bowls and NBA Finals I covered, but I’m not sure where they are.

 

Amazing that that guy is still alive at age 86.

 

When we moved offices a few years ago I salvaged some old media guides from the late 90s that might have some collectible value, like one from Tennessee with Peyton Manning on the cover, and some old NFL guides. One of these days I'll put them on eBay and maybe make some dinner money, but they've gotten relocated to another box and another corner of the house and I haven't ever gotten to it.

 

“I survived the William Henry Harrison Inauguration Speech” would have been a helluva shirt to wear.

 

I've got a crap ton of old NASCAR and NHRA media guides. Seems I can't even give them away.

 

I have a book of theatrical essays about Joan of Arc that belonged to Clara Hieronymus and am still trying to get my paws on a book signed by Fred Russell. A friend of mine found one, went into a bidding war on my behalf, lost, called the person who won a bunch of names, then found out they were related. Welcome to Tennessee.

In addition to that, have a signed wood chip decorated by Norris Hall and a doodle by Jerry Lawler that some wet behind the ears Philistine who had just been hired by the art department at Memphis State insisted be thrown away. Also own some jars of knapped flint from excavations of 11 to 15k year old habitation sites. They were not sufficiently diagnostic to be kept by the antiquities wonks and for some reason people are thrilled to get them. Okay, I was pretty excited when I dug them up. I'll quit trying to be too cool for the room.

 

When I was 8 or 9 my older brother and I buried a plastic Abraham Lincoln in a Sucrets box in the back yard of my boyhood home, along a fence on the property line so we'd know where the grave was. He came in a Cream of Wheat box (or something like that), you could get a different president in every box you bought. We dug about 2-3 feet deep, even built a crypt with some pieces of Olean tile we had lying around the garage.

We don't get back to our hometown too often anymore but we're tempted to ask the current owners if we can dig him up next time we're there.

 

I threw away my yearbooks a couple of decades ago. I prefer the wrinkled, gray versions of those people and their memories to the unformed ghosts who haunt those pages.

 

I actually have a lifelong habit of burying notes in sealed bottles. I plant them somewhere that I hope some day they'll be discovered but unlikely to be dug up any time in my lifetime. I usually just introduce myself, tell who my family was, and some details about my life.
I love it when I randomly unearth some stuff, and I figure if it actually had a story, that would be awesome.
My yard was my grandparents'. Not long ago, I noticed something hidden just under the surface, and it was a small porcelain doll head. I asked my mom if she recognized it as something that was hers as a kid, and she'd never seen it before.
So, whose was it, and how did it get there?*


*I do hope the creepy doll head that I dug out of the ground after an unknown amount of time and is nearly pristine isn't possessed.

 

It does sound like the opening scene of a horror movie.