Sharon Fiffer
Not more than three minutes ago, I pushed send on a draft of an op-ed about Storied Stuff. What I sent to my husband, Steve, for his perusal was meant to be a thoughtful piece on the things we keep and the things we lose, a piece that would complement the recent publication of the book, Storied Stuff: Show and Tell for Grown-Ups, Volume 1.
While Steve read, I reached for a cup to make myself some tea. Precariously stacked, but visually pleasing on open shelving, are my favorite cups.
Part of the Dansk “BLT” ( breakfast, lunch and tea—a plate, a bowl and a mug) of the mid-1970’s. I have treasured my few remaining place settings. Light blue stoneware with a dark blue stripe, these dishes have seen me through at least a dozen moves to various apartments and at least two houses.
Originally sold at Crate and Barrel in Chicago, the dishes were perfect. I had seen an ad for the BLT set in the Sunday Chicago Tribune. I was living in Petersburg, Illinois, with my husband Gene, who was in the later stages of ALS. Some friends were going to be visiting us from the city and I phoned them after seeing the ad, asking if they could buy me 4 place settings and I would reimburse them when they arrived. We didn’t have china or even a lot of matching plates. Nor did we have Amazon or instant delivery service. We were living in a quaint cabin on the Sangamon River, treasuring our limited time together before ALS finished its nasty job. We had sacrificed much of our personal belongings when we married—including our wedding gifts which we returned for cash when possible, because we knew what most of our wedding guests didn’t. Gene had been diagnosed and we had already decided to quickly marry, buy a van or camper, and embark on a whirlwind road trip—our “farewell tour.” We needed cash, not placemats, so our household items were limited when we finally had to park the van in a driveway and ourselves in a living space with a hospital bed and Hoyer lift. Gene was rapidly growing weaker and less adaptable to campsites and third floor walk-ups to visit college friends in their early career apartments.
Back to BLT. These dishes were mid-century mod when we were still living in the mid-century. So I guess that means they were new. In 1975, Gene was a newly minted partner at a graphic design firm. He had an eye for cool objects and sleek design. His apartment in Champaign where we met at the University of Illinois was filled with thrifted and found objects, long before any of today’s thrifting influencers who unbox their goodwill items online were born—perhaps their parents weren’t born yet either.
Anyway—Gene had taste. I left grad school in Minneapolis to return to Chicago when Gene was diagnosed and I had plenty of my own cool stuff. I had an eye too, and more taste than money. Together we sold off our treasures—a musical revolving cigarette box—I think it was bakelite-- funky hats and clothes, all our furniture, a mission rocking chair that I had picked up for a song. We only kept what would be practical for our camper-outfitted van.
After approximately nine months on the road, we came to light in Petersburg. We sold our van in Springfield for more than we had paid for it in Chicago and so could afford the tiny down payment on a dilapidated cabin that was only 30 minutes from his family in Springfield and 2 hours from mine in Kankakee. Illinois. We wanted independence, but knew there would come a time where we had to let the rest of the family in.
So, after I phoned our friends, I celebrated the fact that we would have something new, something nice, something cool. When Chuck and Lynn arrived with the 4 place settings of BLT that weekend, I immediately set our little wooden table with them and we toasted and feasted.
Fast forward. ALS did what we were told it would. By this time, I had Baby Kate, 10 months, in tow, so I packed up the cabin and started our own mom and daughter road trip. We first stopped for a while at my parents in Kankakee. Then we were off to LA where I flirted with staying and becoming a television writer with my friend Alan, then stayed a few months in Quogue, Long Island with friends who had rented a house for the summer. It was there that I shopped at a tiny deli called The Barefoot Contessa and bought desserts from the delightful proprietess, Ina. I could have predicted her success based on the cheesecake alone.
Fast forward again. Believing that I wouldn’t be able to raise baby Kate on either the west or east coast, I plopped myself back into the Midwest. We moved to Evanston, Illinois. I enrolled Kate in Nursery School and prepared myself to head back to graduate school.
I was introduced to Steve when Kate was 4 and although this isn’t a love story, I will say that I continually pinched myself that I met someone so smart and funny and how lucky was I to be able to find a second love of my life. Actually maybe this is a love story. But it’s about a love for dishes. The BLT.
When Steve and I married, we did not sell our wedding gifts. Kate was going to be starting first grade, so we bought a house in Evanston and proceeded to fill it with our stuff. I had broken a few pieces of the BLT in my moves, so I left the remaining pieces boxed and stored and we dined on newer matching plates.
Fast forward again! Two more children! So, 3 children raised and launched in Evanston, and Steve and I thrown upon ourselves as they moved and married. Middle child Nora’s husband loved rummage sales and thrifting as much as I and when we attended one of Evanston’s big church sales, I believe he was on the second floor when he heard me scream from the church basement. “BLT, BLT, tons of BLT”. Sure,it had a brown stripe instead of blue, but it was still Dansk and still worked its magic on me. Luckily son-in-law Adar could help me carry it. I spent the rest of the day happily rearranging the open shelving in our kitchen to accommodate BLT as our everyday dishes.
Only two of my original blue striped cups remained, and they were the only ones I used. I’ve always been careful to make sure that others drank their coffee from the brown stripe.
But today one of the two remaining blues took a tumble. Immediately after writing two short pages about how wonderful it is to keep treasures that tell stories and how awful it is to lose treasures—but even if the object is lost you still have the story.
So, object lost. Story told.
