And We Have This in the Basement Why?

This week I've started the monumental task of cleaning up the basement. When we moved into the house in Oct. 2007, it was a challenge to combine two residences worth of stuff, furniture, clothes, knick-knacks, etc. into one house. A lot of the knick-knack stuff and other odds and ends was boxed up and either put aside in the basement or the garage. This resulted in the inability to park in the garage for the longest time, and a mountain of stuff in the basement spread from one end to the other.

So I've been going down into the basement, which is so short that I can't stand fully, for a little while every day to try and clean up. Every day I find a crazy little bauble that belongs to my father-in-law. The other day I came upon a tin recipe box. The box itself is a little dirty on the outside, but otherwise in good condition. From the way it is decorated, I would assume that it is from the 70s. Now, when I found it, I foolishly thought that perhaps there would be recipe cards inside. Of course, there wasn't. Silly Matt, why would one store recipes in a recipe box?

So what did I find? On top there was a stainless steel jigger for mixing drinks. Beneath that and on one side there was a mostly full tin of pellets for a pellet gun. On the very bottom was an empty Sucrets tin. And then, tucked into the side was a shoe horn. WTF? Why would someone store all of these things in a recipe box and then put it away for an unknown purpose?

Of these things, the only two things I would think to keep would be the jigger and the shoe horn. Then last night, my father-in-law came back home from his stay at the grandparents house down the street, and I asked him about it.

I told him I had found an old recipe box in the basement, and, without having seen this box in who knows how long, he knew just what I was talking about and could name about half the things in the box without any prompting. He also thought there was a key in the box, which there probably was at one point, but has long since disappeared. The pellet gun, it turns out, is not even at our house, but at the grand parents house. And the empty Sucrets container? Who the heck knows.

What other treasures might I find in the basement? I have no idea. I wouldn't be too surprised if I come across the Ark of the Covenant, one of the 13 crystal skulls, Pan's Lute, or the Lyre of Orpheus.

Burried Treasure

It's a little late for International Talk Like a Pirate Day, but while we were cleaning out part of the basement this weekend we came across some treasures in the canning room that had been in there for who knows how long. There were a couple of things from my wife's childhood and a couple of framed pictures and paintings that I at least had lost track of since we moved.

The most interesting thing that we found was a Mandolin-Harp that was wrapped up in a garbage bag. I don't have a picture at the moment, but this thing could definately use a clean up and a tuning. The finish on the top is in pretty bad shape, but you can still kind of make out the image of an eagle behind the strings, and inside the instrument, there's a faded sticker that says what it is, where it came from, and has a sale price of $25 on it. This thing has been sitting in this little room in the basement for at least 10 years. My father-in-law certainly never played it and I doubt Brandi's ever seen it before.

The harp. While the finish is in need of work,
there are some interesting details that can be mad out.

I brought it into work because one of my coworkers said he might be interested in seeing it. I was thinking about selling it, but I don't know. It's kind of neat to have and I wouldn't know what to ask for it anyway. I think there isn't too much more crazy crap in our house that we don't know about (there's plenty of crazy crap we do know about), but it would be interesting to discover something else. I can't imagine the crazy crap that would be over at Brandi's grandparents' house, since they've been in the same house for forever. Maybe it's time to bust out the fedora and bullwhip.

Update: The mandolin harp belonged to my father-in-law's aunt and has been in the basement since he moved in.

The harp's keys.

This image of an eagle and shield is near the head of the harp.

The original sale sticker inside shows where the harp came from.
It originally sold for $25.