Anniversaries

A year ago today I was on vacation.

This was my third time in the UK after what Americans are inclined to refer to as 9/11, but my first time to be there on the day itself.

On my previous visits, when talking with people that I might meet in pubs or so forth, the subject of 9/11 came up gingerly, and I tried as best I could to change the subject equally gingerly. I had met one person who had been on the second plane very briefly once, and I knew a number of people who had lost family and friends.

A year ago today, the subject was New Orleans.

Katrina hit a few days before we left on vacation, and it was about the day we left that we were starting to understand the amount of devastation that had happened. Throughout our vacation, wherever we went, the questions came -- "Are you from there?" No. "Is this normal?" No - and this led into a discussion of how hurricanes are named. Finally, there was "What on Earth is going on there?"

We didn't know. All we saw was what was on the news, same as everyone else.

Of course, news like this makes you think. What if my house was destroyed? What if I lost all my possessions? I've accumulated a lot of dumb junk. When someone asks me if I have a goal in life, my answer is "to own a gigantic building and fill it to the rafters with goofy crap." (When my wife hears me say this, she says "We have that.") If this happened to me -- if it was all taken away -- fine. So be it. I would burn the lot of it to a crisp in the driveway to save a life. It's not worth it.

So a year ago today, I was shunting around Oxfordshire with some friends that we were visiting. and one of the places we stopped was a place called Snowshill. Snowshill is an enormous manor house owned by a fellow named Charles Paget Wade.

Wade amassed his collection from 1900 until 1951, when he gave it with the Manor to the National Trust. His desire was that people could learn to appreciate and love good craftsmanship from the objects he had collected.

There are 22,000 items, plus a 2000 piece costume collection. Wade believed that every object was invested with the spirit of the craftsman and the age in which it was created. He raised even everyday functional objects like butter stamps, cow bells and locks to the status traditionally given to paintings and sculpture.

So the visitor to Snowshill can view clocks, bicycles, automatons, children's toys and even 26 suits of Samurai armour. Wade loved colour and, after collecting many examples of early English craftsmanship, he began to look to the Middle and Far East for objects using a bright and imaginative colours.

This was inspiring. It was marvellous. And it made me think - if it makes me happy to accumulate goofy crap, then that's what I do. If it goes away, I already know I'm cool with it.

Five years ago today, I had a batch of sparkling wine that I was making, just ready for the bottling. I bottled it soon after, and it has seen holidays, weddings and birthdays (and the occasional average day that just needed a bit of a boost). It was excellent stuff, if I do say so myself. There's one last big bottle waiting for a reason to open it, what, I don't know yet. But when I do, it will be opened.

That's what we call hope. And life.

That's the thing about life. You can take all my stuff away. You can kick me in the head. You can blow me to bits. But life goes on, friends. No stopping it. Life goes on.

Cheers!