Ralph's house

Our cranky old neighbor, Ralph -- the one who burned garbage in his fireplace to keep warm, who had two ancient, rusty cars in his garage from the day he moved in, who once parked a moldy, moss-covered RV in front of our house and only sold it after we called the city to complain -- died recently. He apparently had no children, and after a cleanup crew hauled away most of the junk, they had a garage sale.

Drew and I had been dying to go inside, and just our luck the sale was on Saturday as we were leaving for Seattle. We decided to go anyway, especially after Bruce, our neighbor across the street, knocked on our door and told us he was going. "We're right behind you," I told him.

It was an interesting, if sad, journey through that house. I would estimate it was built in 1950 or so, and there are touches -- a certain style of brick and of wrought iron -- that are signs of a local architect's work. He built several houses throughout Irvington. The house was much bigger than either Drew or I had suspected, and very dated -- whoever buys it will have to gut it and rebuild from the inside, or tear it down completely and put something else up (hopefully not a multifamily dwelling). My fantasy is that some nice Jewish family with kids around Rachel's age will buy it and fix it up and we can run in and out of each others' houses on the weekend.

Anyway, the collection of ephemera in the house was staggering. Books about living abroad and learning German, women's clothing from the 1950s (Ralph's wife died before he did), tools, Corningware, ugly furniture...it was all there, but Ralph wasn't. And there weren't any heirs to claim it. It made me wonder what Rachel will do with all our stuff when we die. Will she just end up hauling it away in a dump truck, or will some of it have meaning for her? Hard to tell.

Oh, we did manage to buy something -- four exquisite renderings of ballerinas, in pastel colors on soft pink paper. Definitely from the 1950s, and as soon as I spotted them I showed Rachel, who gasped in delight, and I knew we had to get them. They were only $10 total, and I know they'll look beautiful framed in black against her bedroom wall.