Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

This article first appeared in the January 21, 2012 edition of The Somerville Times

It may be in your bureau, nightstand, or coffee table. Maybe it’s in the kitchen or dining room. It’s the junk drawer. It’s the place where bits and pieces of our past accumulate. It’s the stuff that we just can’t part with. All clumped together. It may be in a plastic bin in the back of your closet, but we all have that place that holds the things we have kept.

Actually, I have several different places that house my stuff. In there is my plastic Somerville High School ID, with a guitar pick-sized hole in it. A key and a lock that doesn’t match. The ignition key (with the Plymouth logo on it) from an old Dodge. My brother’s fourth grade school picture. More photographs, matchbooks, cuff links, business cards, buttons, a bow tie, two old MBTA tokens, and a Somerville tie clip with the Powder House on it. I also saved my draft card and the very last report card from Somerville High School in 1971. It wasn’t pretty, but at least I graduated. There is also a receipt for my orthopedic shows I had to wear in the eighth grade. Lots of old stuff, stuffed into drawers and boxes.

My parents’ old jewelry box, minus any real valuables, is still on the bureau. It was in my parents’ large bureau that we have kept upstairs (maybe because it’s all too old and heavy to move). The drawers still have some of their things in it. A few religious medals, some Masonic pins, and the Western Union telegram that my mother, sister, brother and I sent to my father congratulating him for 30 years at his job at WR Grace. It was dated 12/5/77.  A plastic shoehorn that has been hanging around the house for decades. Sometimes it shows up in the kitchen and sometimes it makes its way back upstairs.

I wonder what would happen if I called the number scribbled on the back of this folded old Dunkin Donuts napkin? A yellow plastic 45 rpm disc that fit inside a record sits next to a silver coin my mother brought me from Mexico. I also have a postcard I sent home to mom when I was living in Florida in the early 80’s.

There have been many times I have tried to clean the drawers, and somehow certain items are just glanced over and left alone. To me, they have become precious heirlooms. When I’m gone my kids will look at the things and decide whether to keep it or throw it out. I will have to make them aware of the various drawers and boxes.

Look at this! It’s a few old checks from Bay Bank. I also found some Art Award ribbons form the Art Fair at St. Clements. I think that was the year I won for drawing a “whirly bird helicopter.” It was underneath a kerchief slide clip from Boy Scout troop 71.

We also have a small wooden music box that still plays, “east side, west side” (The Sidewalks of New York). Inside is a relic that has been there for many years. It is a small piece of wood with some writing scrawled on it. It says, “October 12, 1946…Somerville does it again…beats Medford 20-12 … piece of goal post.”

I can see myself sitting in a rocking chair in a few years with a box of my treasures on my lap. I am still adding things to my collection of stuff. There are some things that we just cannot throw away and never will.