A Crock-pot full of brass fixtures 9.23.2021

       Next to the front door of the Parsonage on the Hill is an old coat hanger/bench/thing. It is likely an antique. At some point, my dad or Mom or both recovered part of it. It had been blue and was most recently painted yellow. I don’t know exactly how or when it made its way to our house. As a hat wearer, I am grateful to have a place to hang my collection of hats. We are supposed to get new floors soon, so Mrs. Beckman has been preparing. One item on her list is to repaint and recover that hall old coat hanger/bench/thing. She began the process by taking off the parts which had been repaired and recovered by my parents and removing the fixtures, has begun to clean them.

         Here is where it gets interesting. Last week I returned home from work for lunch one day. I walked into the kitchen and was struck by the aroma of something in the crock-pot. I walked over, lifted the lid, and peeked inside. And I was met with a crock-pot full of those brass fixtures from the coat hanger/bench/thing. Mrs. Beckman had read somewhere that if you had an old, disposable crock-pot you could put your fixtures (or whatever other item you were looking to clean) therein, fill with water and just cook the ever-loving crap out of them until they were clean. We fed water into that crock-pot for almost a week. After a few days, we were making jokes about how tasty it smelled and how the fixtures appeared to be getting more tender.

         I thought there might be some interesting conclusion or comparison to be drawn from this experience. I reflected, scribbled a few notes, played a game of solitaire, and thought to myself “Maybe not.” Then I considered it again and thought perhaps I might cast about for a couple of insights about restoring what is worn out and the process of refreshing something which is passing away. Then I thought of the story in the book of 1 Samuel where Eli's sons got in trouble for demanding meat from those sacrificing at the tabernacle when they insisted that they be able to take fresh meat when the prevailing custom was to “stick a fork in a pot of boiling water,” to draw out the priest's portion. Having thought that strategy through I considered that I was pressing too hard and that maybe the crock-pot full of brass fixtures was not as revelatory as I initially thought. Rather than find something else to write about, I took a walk and reconsidered.

         During my walk, I reflected upon two reasons that the coat hanger/bench thing is significant. The first is the idea of connection. The second is the idea of utility. Let’s think about those two ideas for a few moments.

         As I mentioned before, the coat hanger/bench/thing stood beside the back door at my parents’ house 330 E. Clark Street for what now seems to be hundreds of years. For a significant part of its history, I would not have been able to tell you what color it was because it was wholly obscured by the coats which were hanging there. There were seven in the Beckman household of my youth. The coats, jackets, rain-slickers, vests, parkas, and ponchos of 2 adults and 5 children. The items hung four or five deep on each one of those brass hangers so recently simmering in their own paint-gravy in the crock-pot there at the Parsonage on the Hill. Mom and Dad have joined the great majority, the siblings are scattered, yet we still have connections to that old coat hanger/bench/thing and the garments that hung there.

         Beyond that, there were grandparents arriving for Thanksgiving. Grandpa Clevenger flinging his Master Mix quilted vest on the top of a stack, perhaps 8 or 9 inches from actually being “on a hook.” Friends would come in, “hang up” their jacket and play, or do homework, or read, or just visit. Maybe the evangelist for the Revival meeting would put his trench coat on top of the others already there. Occasionally when someone called Dad with a need, or to pass on the need of another, a garment would disappear from the coat hanger/bench/thing to be relocated in someone else’s closet. We don’t always get to choose the connections we remember or how they came into our lives. We do get to savor them. We get to prepare them for the next generation. So, I don’t know if Katy will read this or Kyleigh. At some point, someone is going to need to come to Grayville and take possession of this old coat hanger/bench/thing so that the connections bound thereupon can continue.

         Now a few words about utility. If I still had long, flowing locks there is a pretty good chance that the coat hanger/bench/thing would not have any sentimental value, or even a location adjacent to my front door. I’ve mostly lost my hair and what I have is kept buzzed. Hats are more than fashion to me. Hats are essential. I have 5 or 6 fedoras and always keep a brown one and a gray one hanging by the door along with a ball cap and a stocking cap. In this instance utility is the handmaiden to connection. If I did not need a place to hang my hats I would not be in a reflective, sentimental mood about what is otherwise an unexceptional piece of furniture.

            That says much about life. The intersection of utility and connection is not always easy to define. Life can be messy. People and circumstances are mixed in our hearts. Life is complicated. I don’t recall ever having seen that coat hanger/bench/thing with unpainted hardware. None of the memories I associate with it envision it that way. Most of the time I was growing up you could not even see it. You only knew it was there because the coats were clearly hanging on something. Because of its continuing utility and through my wife’s creativity, a simple piece of furniture is renewed and will facilitate an entire new range of connections. Maybe I will have a group of young ministers over to encourage them in their preaching and they will park their parkas there. Maybe during the holidays one of the grandkids will put on Papa’s Minnesota Vikings sock-hat. Maybe someone will say “wasn’t this at Grandma and Grandpa Beckman’s house?” The future will touch the past and a connection of the heart will occur which is only possible because of the shared memory of necessary stuff.