Something Updike Knew

Digging through a box of long-ago cherished items resurrected youthful memories for Elizabeth Ricketson, from her great grandmother’s pilgrimage from Ireland to the childhood basement that hosted her parents’ entrancing parties.

The task of locating a specific cardboard box in our basement initially felt laborious, but it was easier than anticipated. Memories and cherished items had long been packed away. Stored with them, my youth. I was curious as to why some items were saved in the first place, but apparently, they must have meant something in the moment.

My adult children will not recognize the significance of most of the items and may not even remember the why’s of our collection. My great grandmother’s journey from Ireland through Canada and settling in Massachusetts while carrying two small antique statues. Do family heirlooms still hold import? How much heritage to we want carry from place to place? Generation to generation? I hardly knew the details of her long journey. How can I expect my children to embrace the treasures?

The box in question was a recent addition to our storage area, but it had already blended into anonymity with the rest of the tan square stash. Upwards of 20 boxes were neatly stacked along a foundation wall. As the top of the selected box opened, a flood of yesterday floated up.

Jon and I were in search of a small pair of retro music speakers for our son, Daniel. He and his wife, Emily were visiting this past weekend to see my exhibit at the Howe Library in Hanover, New Hampshire. Dan was interested in using them in their home. Our vinyl albums were also of interest but would be looked through when they visited next. I started reminiscing about what my collection might contain. Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” for certain. I lightheartedly mentioned to Daniel that I might have some of my brother’s albums too … ill-gotten goods, I said to Dan and we both laughed. I also hoped McCartney’s “Ram” album was mixed in.

Traveling youthful memories

Somehow in the packing up of our family home in Massachusetts, the speakers that were once my parents forever ago had ended up at our daughter’s home outside of Boston. When they were on the move to their new home, they discovered the items and returned them to us just this past Mother’s Day and my birthday.

Small, tan “high fidelity” speakers with a ’60s vibe. They were once hung in two opposite corners of the basement of my parent’s home. Just a typical New England basement. Cement floor with exposed ceiling and walls. Copper pipes and the endless snaking of wires made obvious between the studs. A fuse box at the far corner and a brick fireplace with a high hearth and shelf next to it. Cement support poles strategically dotted the basement. We often would use them to shimmy up or hold onto with one hand while spinning wildly around them as fast as we could. Sometimes the dramatic landing ruined the fun.

My grandmother’s player piano would arrive a few years later, as did the ’60 and early ’70 décor of avocado and orange. A darker orange patterned linoleum floor now covered the cement. An orange indoor/outdoor carpet on the stairs. White paneling enclosed the many walls of wires. A white drop ceiling now hid the copper pipes that supported our small ranch home. The cement columns boxed in with white paneling. Low circular tables were also built around the columns for drinks to rest while dancing commenced.

A playhouse, washer and dryer, and a work bench near the furnace. I don’t remember my father ever employing it, but he might have. Our Christmas tree when my sister, brother and I were young was always in the basement. Down a laundry chute they dangled me from the bathroom upstairs. I was the youngest and the smallest so they assured me that they would hold my legs tightly while I was in the chute and beyond to check to see if Santa had come. We lived in a small home and our mischief must have been obvious … where were our parents? A story that still and always entertains me and my sibs.

A portable bar of a dark laminate which was a wedding gift to my parents from my paternal grandparents was just around the corner from the bottom of the stairs.

Whiskey Sours

High balls

Low balls

A shiny silver-colored drink mixer. Shaker.

The clicking of stilettos on the cement covered floor. I loved the sound of being an adult. I would wear my mom’s discarded red heels just to hear the sound despite turning my ankles with each attempt.

Colorful hanging lanterns strung across the basement. Party ready. Friends mostly with a few accepted family members and business associates. My mom’s best friend, Muriel, broke her toe dancing the bunny hop barefoot when my mother jumped back, with her stiletto landing right on Muriel’s big toe. The alcohol became medicinal, I would imagine.

I would go downstairs after one of their parties. Camels and Luckys filed tall ashtrays, mounds of cigarettes smoked down to the very last puff. Left over sips of coffee stained my mother’s fine China cups. It was a scene that could have been written by John Updike.

“The firmest house in my fiction, probably, is the little thick-walled sandstone farmhouse of ‘The Centaur’ and ‘Of the Farm’; I had lived in that house and can visualize every floorboard and bit of worn molding.”
– John Updike

A graduate of Providence College with a BA in English, Elizabeth Ricketson has always had a love of literature and the fine arts. In the 1990s, she studied figure drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design, spending years dedicated to understanding human form, movement, and anatomy. Learn more at her website, ElizabethRicketson.net.

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