“Possession is nine tenths of the law!”

It’s a schoolyard maxim that children learn very early.  From nearly their first words, toddlers will tell you that whatever object has captured their short attention span is “mine!”

When they get bigger and learn to share, there are always certain things that still are irrevocably “mine” and not for anyone else.  A blanket.  A stuffed animal.  Usually something special and comforting.

Later there are hand-me-downs and gifts, garage sale items and numerous objects that make up life’s detritus that come in and out of your possession.  But they are still “yours” while you have them.

But there are many things we have in our homes that somehow are never really “ours.”  They are forever and always associated with, and in our minds belong to, someone else.  We are merely the caretakers of those items while we have them.

If you don’t have a somewhat direct connection to the person who had the item before you, I don’t think you ever develop the sense that it’s anyone’s but your own.  There are plenty of things we have from antique stores, garage sales, and other second-hand purchases.  But those are different.  Their history is separate and lost to us, and so it becomes ours the moment it comes into our possession.

Perhaps if a short “biography” of items were written and passed down with things, then everything would have its history preserved in some fashion.  At least within the family, it would be an interesting genealogical / archeological exercise.  But once something is made part of the wider world, its history begins all over.

The juicer in our kitchen cupboards is a good example.*  My grandmother, so the story goes, squeezed fresh orange juice every morning with that juicer.  In the days before orange juice was a frozen or pasteurized commodity, if you wanted orange juice you squeezed oranges for it.  It’s a vintage, “Made in the U.S.A.” item from Wearever.  Simple, efficient and a great breakfast treat with eggs, sausage and toast.  It’s been in our kitchen our entire married lives.  And it’s not ours.

Nana, my grandmother passed away years ago.  But it’s still “Nana’s juicer.”  And it’s not anywhere near the only thing that bears such a distinction in our vocabulary and our minds.  There’s Nana’s waffle iron - for some reason the only waffle iron in family history to have the ability to produce waffles that are not stuck like wallpaper paste to the cooking surface.  Brushed lightly with oil before each pour of batter, and you get tremendous waffles every time.

We also have “Mamie’s spoons” on the kitchen counter.  My great grandmother, Grandma Straub, always had silver teaspoons available for use on the table.  They’re monogrammed with an “E” for some reason (it was not one of her initials, but must have been someone in the family’s).  She also has been gone for many years, but still, those are “her spoons.”

Interestingly, the stack of well used iron skillets in the cupboard are a mixture of Nana’s and Grandma Straub’s skillets.  I wouldn’t have the vaguest idea how to “cure” a new iron skillet, but I know that many decades of use by Nana and Grandma Straub preparing things cooked in lard and butter have made them ideal for use.  And every time I pull one out, I remember them both.

It’s not just the women in the family who have passed things down and preserved their ownership of things.  Every day I wear a watch of indeterminate vintage, another “Made in America” item from many years ago.  It was my grandfather’s, and I can still picture him wearing it when I put it on.  I’ve changed the band since he wore it, but “his band” is still in my, oops, “Nana’s” nightstand.  The small cherry chest of drawers next to the bed isn’t mine either.

Even before I get to the point of putting on a watch for work, I use my other grandfather’s razor to shave.  I don’t remember him because he died when I was very little, but Grandma Schlosser saved everything, including his razors.  When I decided several years ago to try using the pre-modern technology of a single, double-sided safety razor rather than the disposables of the modern era, the vintage Gillette from Grandma Schlosser’s medicine cabinet found its way to me.  It’s possible that a decade from now, I’ll try to teach Ben to shave using Grandpa Schlosser’s razor.

There are so many things like those in the house and in our lives - sometimes not just objects but things like recipes.  And it’s not a phenomenon particular to our family.  Our good friends, Hope and Darren, always refer to the dishes in their cupboard as “Darren’s grandparents’ dishes,” and at least a couple of times a year, we make “Hope’s Grandmother’s quiche.”

I suppose there’s some irony in the fact that things we have now that we consider to be someone else’s will only become “ours” in the minds of our children and grandchildren.  Should Nana’s waffle iron continue to turn out chocolate chip waffles as Jordan and Ben grow up, move out and begin their own lives, then someday years from now, after I’m gone, it will become “Grampa’s waffle iron.”  “I remember how he used to sprinkle mini chocolate chips into the batter before he closed the lid,” Jordan will tell her children.

For the next 40-50 years, though, it will still be, along with so many other things we have in our possession, effectively “on loan” from someone else.  So despite Robert Fulghum’s book title (and the title of this post) I guess there are some things we do learn after kindergarten.

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* - The juicer in question is pictured and captioned at our sister site, http://web.me.com/emlilly/