Silver is not very popular these days. Some silver things can hardly be given away. My generation has one foot in the world where silver items were well used and certainly respected and today's world where silver pieces cannot find a home where they even see the light of day and a little polish.
At least this straddling of worlds provides a little perspective. I know my mother who was definitely not born with a silver spoon in her mouth learned to love silver when she became the grand lady of the house at 347 West Pine St. My dad who I hardly knew loved to have dinner parties. In those days, the first half of the last century, a good party apparently required silver. I did not grow up with silver because my mother and dad were not living together during my early years.
It was only in the sixties when I came back from my first year at military school that my mother had moved back to Pine St. to take care of my dad who had a stroke. There were no parties in those years but there were extended family dinners when mother got to show off all the silver trays, punch bowl, and silver spoons. I never thought much about them until after my father died and mother starting trying to give us silver every time that we walked through the house.
Giving us silver that she no longer used and was tired of polishing only had a limited impact but it did not matter. In July of 2004 when her boarder and long-time friend, RJ Berrier, died, she announced that she was moving in us. She packed her suitcase and walked out of the house and left us to deal with it and everything in it.
It was then when we started figuring out what to do with everything mother had left behind that I started wishing that the silver could talk. I am sure there were plenty of Mount Airy people in the Pine Street house during the twentieth century. I suspect there was enough drink to keep the stories and conversations flowing into the early morning hours.
I know so little about the real person who was my father that I would gladly welcome a talking silver tray. Today we get snippets of who people are in video clips and social media. Certainly there is no shortage of casual photographs. Ninety years ago there was little to record the parties of the day but the memories of those you attended. If letters were written, I have not been fortunate enough to find them.
Given a little magic, I would expect the silver to recount strong opinions which likely were freely expressed. While people certainly disagreed about things in those days, certainly they all believed in a better life for their children through education and science. It is safe to say that they shared a vision of country ready to be built by people willing to work and pay their fair share of taxes.
One of the few things I remember my dad telling me and I sure the silver will back me up was that he was proud to be able to pay his taxes. Today that thought is about as popular as silver trays are. I know that my dad who came to this country at the age of five, got his education in night school and worked with his hands until his business skills could take over was sincere in saying that.
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