Medieval Times
When we recently went east for my son Thomas’ wedding, my cousin-in-law Nancy brought me a book she had salvaged from my Ithaca house last year before everything either went out to the estate auction house or the trash. I have worked hard for two years now to get over the circumstances of my exit from that house of mine for 26 years, and I think I am mostly there. But every once in a while something drags me back and while I think the bitterness is gone, there still remains a tinge of nostalgia since Ithaca was such a special place to me. Before I get into the issue of the book, let me tell you how we disposed of the accumulated years of stuff that we had in that house. We started with a trip there in the summer of 2021 where I went around and put stuff I really wanted to keep in my possession into boxes which we shipped back to this hilltop. I was originally going to take a trailer and use that to drag everything back, but the burdens of cross-country travel while towing a trailer lost out to the more sensible shipping alternative. Naturally I shipped more boxes than I expected even though I thought I triaged quite harshly. I had already declared to my three children that anything they wanted from the house they could take. Kids today seem rarely in need of hand-me-downs and memorabilia has less significance to them than it does to us older sorts, but they each took some things that were special to each for one reason or another. My kids are spaced out over thirteen years so their memories of the place and attachment to things are all three quite different. My oldest son, Roger, was most aggressive with a rented truck and taking anything he could wrestle into that truck. he also has the biggest place with the most unfurnished rooms, so he took a fair bit. My daughter has the least spare space but she has plenty of sentimentality towards stuff, so she got a few choice pieces that I see glimpses of when I FaceTime with her and her family. Thomas got a fair pile as well and, due to his gang of friends who regularly reunioned up there, he also allowed them each to take one thing they really liked.
The second phase of disposition was that I told my cousins Pete & Nancy to take whatever they wanted or needed since they were a big part of the memories of the place. They had, over the years, inherited many things from the house and despite being empty nesters with a four-bedroom home and an Air-BNB basement, they only had room for so much. Even their two boys, Pete Jr. and Anthony only had so much they needed. Nancy then sold off to local friends of hers anything that seemed in demand and she did some selective donations where she thought there was interest. That still left a bulk of furniture that we agreed to give to a consignment auctioneer that specialized on estate sales. They actually took more than we expected of both indoor and outdoor items. The rest went in the trash and then we were done and broom cleaned.
After almost a year, and with occasional pings from me, the estate auctioneers finally sold my possessions at auction. Admittedly, these were not antiques, but they were actually quite good and well-kept items that had faithfully and sturdily served us over the years. I imagine there was a cost basis of something less than $50,000 in the entirety of it. I expected to get at most $10,000 for the lot. When the final auction results were in I was shocked on two levels. First of all, everything together sold for some $4,350. That was shock number one and it reminded me of the wasting value of most things in life. Secondly, of that amount I netted after auction fees and commission was $1,723 or 40% of the proceeds. Shock number two is a reminder that when you are running away from a situation you rarely have any negotiating power. I have also gotten a few other lessons from all of this. The first is to see what people do and don’t value in the junk market. And the second is that since the first distribution, the auctioneer has sent me follow-on shocks for $21 and $5, just so I can keep remembering all of this and shaking my head about how everything in life is fleeting.
The book that my cousins plucked out of the ones that I left behind (I purposefully left all my old college texts, which had hung around way too long) was a book from my high school days that I had somehow missed in the shuffle. As soon as I saw the book it was totally familiar to me, but I guess that just seeing the spine of it on the shelf didn’t gig me to save it. Now that I was turning it over in my hands I couldn’t believe I had left it behind. It is incredibly meaningful and precious to me in a way that I’m not sure I realized ever before. Perhaps I needed the time and distance from it to recognize those feelings, but I sure am glad that my cousins thought to save it for me and return it to me. The book is a red fabric-bound text (with an Ionic column and a banner-carrying knight on horseback) that’s about 1.5 inches thick. It is called Ancient and Medieval History by Magoffin and Duncalf and it was published in 1959. I must have been in a very positive mode back in 1967 when I got it because on two sides of the page ends I had written Marin and on the third or top side I went even further and wrote R. Marin in bi-colored block lettering with the inside of the letters colored like the cover in fading red. On the inside cover, in addition to three more branding with my name there is a yellow sticker that looks like it must have been an official sticker from my school since it has my name and post office box and declares that I am a member of and my address is shown as Hebron Academy, in Hebron, Maine.
Let’s remember that this was my text book for history in 9th grade when I was 13 and 14 years old. This text is 860 pages long, not including the index. From the artwork and timeline on the front and back cover, the timeframe covered by the text starts with the caveman somewhere around 10,000 BC and runs through the Age of Exploration with people like Sir Henry Hudson in 1630. The highlights on the timeline seem to be the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire and the Fall of Rome, Medieval Times including the Crusades, the Feudal Age, the invention of the printing press and gunpowder and finally the galleons on the high seas, spreading the wings of the European nation-states.
I had been enrolled at Hebron Academy, 14 miles north of where we lived in Poland Spring, Maine. I had attended Poland Community School for 7th and 8th grade and I would have either had to travel daily into Auburn (more or less the same distance away) to go to Auburn public high school, or go somewhere else. My mother was not impressed by the Maine public education system, plus I was coming of age and she felt that more male influence would be a positive factor for me, so off I went to Hebron Academy as a boarding student. I too recognize the limits of the public schools in this somewhat backward state, so I too ws in favor of going somewhere better for me. While I had been raised in a very education-centric home with a mother who worked through getting her doctorate degree, but this immersion at Hebron took that to a new level. We had evening study halls (always in our own rooms) and Saturday morning study halls and yet again another Sunday night study hall. And the classes were all classic course (English, History, Latin, Science, Math) and the teachers were serious suited educators who had mostly all gone to prep schools and top colleges. I can remember high degrees of rigor in all classes, much more rigorous than anything at Poland Community School or anywhere I had gone before.
Each and every page of this 860 page book is underlined, highlighted and annotated in the margins. I am incredulous that I was so engaged in this course of study at that age and I consider that a testament to Hebron. I enjoy looking through and reading my notes about these thousands of years of critically important human history. I note that on page 840 in a section about the rise of commerce as a means to grow beyond the feudal system I made a note about the pernicious potential for inflation. Go figure. Even 55 years ago I had an eye for the central organizing principles. I feel like I want to reread about Medieval Times alongside my younger self.