Bringing Home the Duncan Phyfe: Chapter 25

"It Didn't Occur to me at the Time"
[12-28-07 A short chapter 24 was inserted before this newly numbered chapter.]

The Friday after that move, Mom said goodbye to her bosses and co-workers at Star Oil, not knowing that in her hand was the last paycheck she would ever earn. I asked Mom how it felt walking out of work that day. Did she feel happy or sad that she would never "work outside the home" again for the rest of her life. She said something that could be the subtitle for all of our lives: ...................

It didn't occur to me at the time.

As I wrap up this story, I'd like to give my readers a sense of the kinds of conversations that went into its writing, so I'm just going to let Mom tell this part herself. This is not the conversation that began in Chapter One, when I heard the story for the first time. This is very recent. The Italicized paragraphs below are her:

"It didn't occur to me at the time," she said, "Wouldn't it be awful to know the future. I was frightened enough to face the changes one day at a time. If we fully understood that some changes change everything, I think it would scare us half to death. No... my last day at Star Oil felt pretty much like any other Friday. I just said my 'Merry Christmases' and left. Who would've guessed that four years later I'd have four kids. Kathy was born in April; Paul the March after; David the June after that; and you in April of '56, That's the way it was back then--Boom Boom Boom. Stair steps (then Jimmy came as the caboose later on). But I didn't know what was comin'...It didn't occur to me at the time.

"I did see those people at Star Oil through the years. The owner, Mr. Kaiser--not Mr. Kellerman my boss, but the owner--he bought Kathy her first pair of baby shoes. Came right to our place house to see Kathy and give me the shoes himself. Here's the funny thing, it wasn't that second apartment on Wells Street. The landlady there was scary--she yelled at us for making noise. Virg and Bev had been over playing cards late, and Virg went outside for a smoke and came trouncing up the stairs with that laugh of his. Well the landlady just about ran up after him for waking them up. She was a scary lady--so we moved to Glenwood Street in March, the month before Kathy was born.

"It was at Glenwood that your Dad built me a nice clothes line. I didn't have my Speedqueen yet, so I was still washing by hand and wringing the clothes out like before. I'd take the wet clothes out and hang 'em on the line in whatever order I pulled 'em out. It's seems funny to me now, but the clothes used to freeze out there on the line. Then one day your dad came home, looked at the line, and said, 'Wouldn't it look nicer if you hung the towels with the towels and the linens with the linens and the underwear in between on the center line instead of just hangin' it every which way?' Well, it had never occurred to me to care how I hung things on the line. The point was to get 'em dry and take 'em down, but after that I started hanging them in categories with the underwear in the middle. I didn't mind. It made sense. It just hadn't occurred to me that it made any difference to your dad.

"Okay. Where was I. Oh, yes. From Glenwood we moved to Detroit. Your dad got transferred with Bell. I was due for Paul in March, but I wanted to deliver in Port Huron so I went to live at Forest Street during the last weeks while Dad finished his last month in Detroit. Then we moved into a Duplex on Riverside after Paul was born. By then we had enough money to buy the house at 1127 Lapeer Avenue. That's where we lived when Dave was born.

"So in those two years we lived in seven different places--me who had never left home until I was married, and your poor Dad had to carry that Duncan Phyfe with us to each new address."

She laughed. And I stopped taking notes and joined in her thoughts.

"Mom, I was born in '56, and we were still on Lapeer Avenue.

I remember the Duncan Phyfe being in the front room, but it still didn't have chairs. Did you ever get chairs for it?"

"No. We never did. We hardly ever used it, but we--I--always planned to eventually."

"After Lapeer Avenue. We moved into the house we were building on Atkins Road in 1960. I remember the Duncan Phyfe was down in the family room where we put up the Christmas tree that year, but I don't remember ever sitting at that table."

"We only lived there a year and a half, and we were so busy still building the house around us we never had time to do much else. I think we used it a couple times."

"Then in 1961, we moved to Roseville. I remember the Duncan Phyfe was in the basement over by the laundry room. Whenever we ate down there with the cousins, I think we sat at it then."

"Yes. We opened it up, and put you kids at it for Thanksgiving, but we just used those old folding chairs around it."

"Mom, you and Dad hauled that table to about ten different places, but you never got to use it in a formal dining room--which is why you brought it home in the first place."

"You're right, but we never were very formal as it turned out. I'm still glad Dad got it for me. It was for my "someday dining room." You've got to have 'somedays' to hold on to. That's what hope is--even if it never happens. That's how it was with that table. We got a formica-and chrome table like everybody else and ate at it in the kitchen all those years. By the time I had a dining room, Jim was born [1968] and there were seven of us. So we got the maple colonial from Ethan Allen. It's just one of those things. Who'da guessed?

Your kids are growing up and getting married and going off to school. You're old enough to see how life works, Tom. It's a blur--a vapor--and that's why I'm glad you like to write. I can tell stories, but I can't write 'em down."

"Well, I couldn't have written this without you telling it all those years and answering all these questions for months on the phone. But what you were saying is true. The older I get the more I see that families stories are less about what did occur... and more about the million things that didn't occur to us at the time. I think of that whenever I see that old table."

"I haven't seen it in years, Tom. Where is it?" Mom asked.

"It's right where we used it last. Remember?"

"Is it still there after all these years?"

"Yep. It's still there, Mom. I'll have Bob take some pictures."

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And what became of the Duncan Phyfe? If you’ve read this far, you’ve earned the right to know. One more chapter to go, an epilogue of sorts, before we wrap this up for a belated Christmas present.