My wife and children are humiliated by my dream. My parents just shake their heads, as they were raised to be too polite to say anything if they have nothing nice to say. My siblings don’t even want to deal with it. But why should they? It’s my dream – not theirs - albeit an elusive one. One that becomes geometrically further out of reach with every passing moment. One that I should have started working on 25 years ago, when there might have been a prayer of completing it.
My dream is based upon my fundamental appreciation for history and nostalgia. I guess that it’s relatively common and normal to have certain nostalgic feelings about things that remind you of your childhood. For a lot of us, childhood was a wonderful and free time, with little or no responsibilities and thousands of delightful memories. Mine certainly was like that. I grew up in a family setting that mimicked the old TV shows. Dad had a steady job, we lived in a middle-class suburb in Orange County where it was sunny and warm all the time. Movies didn’t need ratings, the most controversial song lyrics on the radio were the Beach Boys singing “God Only Knows”, and my parents didn’t need to know where I was until my father whistled for me to come home about when the streetlights came on. Life was really good there for a while, and I loved it all so.
Things always have to change, though, and they started changing for me rather all at once. Within a year or so, my brother went into the air force, my sister got married, and we moved halfway across the country to a place with much different climates, both meteorologically and culturally. I found my new situation hostile, not only because we subsequently moved very often, and I never really integrated in any of the new places, but also because every place we moved had a radically different culture, and I felt so out of place in all of them. To add to this, my extended family had been fairly close back in California, getting together at least every other weekend and definitely on every holiday. But, save for most Christmases and for a few weeks in the summers, we seldom saw them anymore. As a result, a part of my heart was buried back there in Orange County, and I consider it my real home to this day (even though I am on my 19th residence).
So that explains the nostalgia component, but I’m not sure that I can explain my fascination with historical places so much. It’s just the excitement and feeling I get being in a place where something notable happened, or seeing the actual objects owned and used by notable people doing notable things. I can’t be alone in this, or there would be no historical places to visit and no museums. I must confess, however, at getting a little bit perturbed at so many of the historical locations that are not furnished with the original pieces of furniture or other objects belonging to those who made the place famous, or even exact replicas, reproductions or period copies of those objects. I always felt as if it is worth the effort to go the extra mile, do the extra research, go to the extra expense and do anything and everything that is necessary to duplicate the historical place in as much exacting detail as possible, and then some.
History and nostalgia tend to run together in my mind. One manifestation of this is that places and articles of family history are dear to me too. And so, my dream has always been, and continues to be, to purchase back the home I lived in, and to refurnish it as exactly as possible to the way it existed at the time.
This started out just being a joke. I thought of it as a monument to me, and I could treat it as a museum. A museum dedicated to someone that no one had ever heard of, because he had not done anything noteworthy other than completing this museum. Think Watts Towers.
I sort of love that kind of twisted humor. I think the seed for this was planted when we lived in rural Illinois, and there was an historical place in town known as the David Davis Mansion. Now, as an adult, and with the aid of the internet, I can understand that David Davis was a judge, and his home stayed in the family for many generations, and is now a museum to show off Victorian style and splendor. But when I lived there, no one had any idea who David Davis was, or why his home was an attraction. But people went there. School field trips; ladies garden clubs; tour buses, for all I know. They paid admission and looked at what my grandma would have called “the pretty things” and never knew or cared who David Davis was.
I had this image in my mind of creating the most perfect possible walk-in diorama of 1960s life, but with the twist that it was actually a faithful reproduction of my life – not anyone else’s. It could still be useful to bring back memories to others nostalgic for 1960s stuff, but mostly it would be a monument to me. I just love the thought of people paying to tour the place and asking each other (and the tour guides): “Who was this guy, anyway?”.
Over the years, my dream grew from being just a twisted joke to a quest. In my mind, this place needed to be acquired and restored to absolute perfection. As much as possible would be original. Anything that couldn’t be would be replicated as exactly as possible. I wanted to make this place so perfect that it would give my parents and siblings the creeps to walk through it. Literally.
But the dream grew over time. This could be so much more than an elaborate hoax or a 1960s middle-class museum. It could be a life’s work – a masterpiece of sorts. I am the only person on Earth that could do this. I have an exceptional memory and an acute eye for detail. My parents and siblings might be able to add value with some occasional consultation, but overall, they don’t have either the recall nor the interest to make this project what it could be.
For example, I envision removing layers of paint and wallpaper with nearly archaeological care to find small shreds of 1966 wallpaper or 1959 mural or tiny samples of a paint color that I can reproduce. Recently, while watching a television program about the old hotels on what’s left of Route 66, I saw one of those places where the rooms are concrete teepees, and the bedspreads and curtains were the ones my brother and I had in our room. My first inclination was to drive there and buy a set from the owner for my project. I look at old family photos and home movies, and I see clues and images of furniture or murals or wall hangings that I could reproduce. I see myself commissioning custom manufactured orders for what are now old-fashioned carpets and draperies and such.
The playhouse in the back yard and the garage are the only two deviations from exact perfection that I will allow myself. The original playhouse my father built with his own hands, and did a magnificent job. It was a wooden structure with sheetrock walls inside. It had windows, doors, and child-size furniture, even a rug. It was great. But my plans dictate a need to make a change, as what I shall need for my monument will be a structure that looks exactly like our old playhouse from the outside, but which houses tombs for myself and my oh so patient and tolerant wife on the inside. No historical site would be complete without a crypt or two. The other deviation I will allow is for the sake of practicality – the garage will need to be converted into a gift shop for the patrons, where they can pick up postcards and souvenir spoons and copies of my memoirs (working title: “An Autobiography of Nobody in Particular”).
With every passing moment, my dream becomes more elusive. Over the years, my parents, my siblings and even I have sold or given away many of the original furnishings. Even more were destroyed in a fire at my brother’s house in 2003. Precious little remains, but there are some original things, and my mother even thinks that she may still have one of those bedspreads from my old room.
Other things may be replaceable. To be honest, some of our stuff was common enough that it can occasionally be found in an antique shop or garage sale. However, I was horrified one day when we lived in rural North Carolina (actually, I was horrified on most days we lived in rural North Carolina), but on this particular day we went to Greensboro, and there is a nationally known company there that stocks new and used china and silverware for people who need replacement pieces, or who want to add to their sets of patterns. While strolling through their showroom with my wife and parents, there were glass cases here and there with examples of particularly valuable china patterns. These were on display more for show than for sale, I think, as the prices on them could be really extreme. Then, I saw in one of these cases, our old family pattern. At first I was thrilled that I could get it – then intimidated by the fact that it was in one of these cases and the implications of the price. Finally, my heart sunk as I realized just how far out of reach this china pattern would be – the price tag simply read: “Priceless”. That’s my mom. She has always had excellent taste. Some limited run and very rare china pattern that evolved over the years into priceless art. And we probably sold it at a garage sale for 50 cents. Now I’ll never get it back into those cupboards.
What’s worse, is that even though the house appears (at least from the outside) to be the most original one left in the neighborhood (after nearly 50 years), the place that my dad bought for $25,000 in 1959 and sold for $29,900 in 1968 sold in 2004 for $650,000. It’s in an area that now sells on average for $1,400,000. Pretty far out of my league for a hobby project. Especially when you stop to think that I might need to buy some other close-to-original houses in the neighborhood, at least temporarily, for parts!
The thought of building this memorial to me is in my mind all the time. Last autumn, we took a few days to retreat to a rented cabin in the mountains, and my most vivid memory of those few days of quiet solitude was that the kitchen cupboards had the same pull-handles on them that I would need for my project; my obsession; my reason to exist; my very own personal neurosis; my monument to me.
My dream is based upon my fundamental appreciation for history and nostalgia. I guess that it’s relatively common and normal to have certain nostalgic feelings about things that remind you of your childhood. For a lot of us, childhood was a wonderful and free time, with little or no responsibilities and thousands of delightful memories. Mine certainly was like that. I grew up in a family setting that mimicked the old TV shows. Dad had a steady job, we lived in a middle-class suburb in Orange County where it was sunny and warm all the time. Movies didn’t need ratings, the most controversial song lyrics on the radio were the Beach Boys singing “God Only Knows”, and my parents didn’t need to know where I was until my father whistled for me to come home about when the streetlights came on. Life was really good there for a while, and I loved it all so.
Things always have to change, though, and they started changing for me rather all at once. Within a year or so, my brother went into the air force, my sister got married, and we moved halfway across the country to a place with much different climates, both meteorologically and culturally. I found my new situation hostile, not only because we subsequently moved very often, and I never really integrated in any of the new places, but also because every place we moved had a radically different culture, and I felt so out of place in all of them. To add to this, my extended family had been fairly close back in California, getting together at least every other weekend and definitely on every holiday. But, save for most Christmases and for a few weeks in the summers, we seldom saw them anymore. As a result, a part of my heart was buried back there in Orange County, and I consider it my real home to this day (even though I am on my 19th residence).
So that explains the nostalgia component, but I’m not sure that I can explain my fascination with historical places so much. It’s just the excitement and feeling I get being in a place where something notable happened, or seeing the actual objects owned and used by notable people doing notable things. I can’t be alone in this, or there would be no historical places to visit and no museums. I must confess, however, at getting a little bit perturbed at so many of the historical locations that are not furnished with the original pieces of furniture or other objects belonging to those who made the place famous, or even exact replicas, reproductions or period copies of those objects. I always felt as if it is worth the effort to go the extra mile, do the extra research, go to the extra expense and do anything and everything that is necessary to duplicate the historical place in as much exacting detail as possible, and then some.
History and nostalgia tend to run together in my mind. One manifestation of this is that places and articles of family history are dear to me too. And so, my dream has always been, and continues to be, to purchase back the home I lived in, and to refurnish it as exactly as possible to the way it existed at the time.
This started out just being a joke. I thought of it as a monument to me, and I could treat it as a museum. A museum dedicated to someone that no one had ever heard of, because he had not done anything noteworthy other than completing this museum. Think Watts Towers.
I sort of love that kind of twisted humor. I think the seed for this was planted when we lived in rural Illinois, and there was an historical place in town known as the David Davis Mansion. Now, as an adult, and with the aid of the internet, I can understand that David Davis was a judge, and his home stayed in the family for many generations, and is now a museum to show off Victorian style and splendor. But when I lived there, no one had any idea who David Davis was, or why his home was an attraction. But people went there. School field trips; ladies garden clubs; tour buses, for all I know. They paid admission and looked at what my grandma would have called “the pretty things” and never knew or cared who David Davis was.
I had this image in my mind of creating the most perfect possible walk-in diorama of 1960s life, but with the twist that it was actually a faithful reproduction of my life – not anyone else’s. It could still be useful to bring back memories to others nostalgic for 1960s stuff, but mostly it would be a monument to me. I just love the thought of people paying to tour the place and asking each other (and the tour guides): “Who was this guy, anyway?”.
Over the years, my dream grew from being just a twisted joke to a quest. In my mind, this place needed to be acquired and restored to absolute perfection. As much as possible would be original. Anything that couldn’t be would be replicated as exactly as possible. I wanted to make this place so perfect that it would give my parents and siblings the creeps to walk through it. Literally.
But the dream grew over time. This could be so much more than an elaborate hoax or a 1960s middle-class museum. It could be a life’s work – a masterpiece of sorts. I am the only person on Earth that could do this. I have an exceptional memory and an acute eye for detail. My parents and siblings might be able to add value with some occasional consultation, but overall, they don’t have either the recall nor the interest to make this project what it could be.
For example, I envision removing layers of paint and wallpaper with nearly archaeological care to find small shreds of 1966 wallpaper or 1959 mural or tiny samples of a paint color that I can reproduce. Recently, while watching a television program about the old hotels on what’s left of Route 66, I saw one of those places where the rooms are concrete teepees, and the bedspreads and curtains were the ones my brother and I had in our room. My first inclination was to drive there and buy a set from the owner for my project. I look at old family photos and home movies, and I see clues and images of furniture or murals or wall hangings that I could reproduce. I see myself commissioning custom manufactured orders for what are now old-fashioned carpets and draperies and such.
The playhouse in the back yard and the garage are the only two deviations from exact perfection that I will allow myself. The original playhouse my father built with his own hands, and did a magnificent job. It was a wooden structure with sheetrock walls inside. It had windows, doors, and child-size furniture, even a rug. It was great. But my plans dictate a need to make a change, as what I shall need for my monument will be a structure that looks exactly like our old playhouse from the outside, but which houses tombs for myself and my oh so patient and tolerant wife on the inside. No historical site would be complete without a crypt or two. The other deviation I will allow is for the sake of practicality – the garage will need to be converted into a gift shop for the patrons, where they can pick up postcards and souvenir spoons and copies of my memoirs (working title: “An Autobiography of Nobody in Particular”).
With every passing moment, my dream becomes more elusive. Over the years, my parents, my siblings and even I have sold or given away many of the original furnishings. Even more were destroyed in a fire at my brother’s house in 2003. Precious little remains, but there are some original things, and my mother even thinks that she may still have one of those bedspreads from my old room.
Other things may be replaceable. To be honest, some of our stuff was common enough that it can occasionally be found in an antique shop or garage sale. However, I was horrified one day when we lived in rural North Carolina (actually, I was horrified on most days we lived in rural North Carolina), but on this particular day we went to Greensboro, and there is a nationally known company there that stocks new and used china and silverware for people who need replacement pieces, or who want to add to their sets of patterns. While strolling through their showroom with my wife and parents, there were glass cases here and there with examples of particularly valuable china patterns. These were on display more for show than for sale, I think, as the prices on them could be really extreme. Then, I saw in one of these cases, our old family pattern. At first I was thrilled that I could get it – then intimidated by the fact that it was in one of these cases and the implications of the price. Finally, my heart sunk as I realized just how far out of reach this china pattern would be – the price tag simply read: “Priceless”. That’s my mom. She has always had excellent taste. Some limited run and very rare china pattern that evolved over the years into priceless art. And we probably sold it at a garage sale for 50 cents. Now I’ll never get it back into those cupboards.
What’s worse, is that even though the house appears (at least from the outside) to be the most original one left in the neighborhood (after nearly 50 years), the place that my dad bought for $25,000 in 1959 and sold for $29,900 in 1968 sold in 2004 for $650,000. It’s in an area that now sells on average for $1,400,000. Pretty far out of my league for a hobby project. Especially when you stop to think that I might need to buy some other close-to-original houses in the neighborhood, at least temporarily, for parts!
The thought of building this memorial to me is in my mind all the time. Last autumn, we took a few days to retreat to a rented cabin in the mountains, and my most vivid memory of those few days of quiet solitude was that the kitchen cupboards had the same pull-handles on them that I would need for my project; my obsession; my reason to exist; my very own personal neurosis; my monument to me.
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