Everyone Has A Story

I have been thinking about this for a while, not as a blog subject,this is something I have pondered on every since I was a little girl. I grew up in Los Angeles back in the 60's, my grandmother raised me as a single mother. My grandfather passed away a month before I was born. Because of bad choices, the inability or lack of desire to care for us my grandmother felt forced to take on her three smallest charges. My grandmother was a lady, a girl raised in a family that had money but knew the value of a dollar. Even though they could have all the trimmings they rarely did. They were pioneer stalk, covered wagons, wild indians, hard clay Kansas dirt, dug outs the whole 9 yards. Everything they had they worked hard for. This was my grandmother's heritage, this is what she knew. I adored her, I wanted to be just like her. When my grandparents bought their home, it was new territory, they had been living in La Jolla, California, my grandfather was a pseudo contractor buying small lots along the coast, building a house, selling it and then repeating the process. Back then before WWll a person didn't need a college degree to get ahead or be someone. All you needed was the ability a stout heart and desire, the world was their oyster. Something our generation has lost, to dream we have to go to college, it is a requirement in our modern age. But when my grandfather heard of a new place just openening up and the opportunity to grab some land at unbelievable prices he could not pass it up. He purchased a lot and then had a house moved on it, this cost him 10 thousand dollars, wow... Two lots up was the old Spanish hacienda from the Ranchero that had been this area. You could see for miles, there were streets but no houses. Way back The ranchers used to have their valubles buried, they had no safes and the banditos were rampit in the area so they burried them for safe keeping. There were rumors that there was treasure out there somewhere, so at night mom(my grandmother) said that the horizon was peppered with fires as treasure seekers hunted, the next day all you could see was the holes they left behind, but the next night they were back. As houses were built the hunters were forced to give up and move on. The area which is now considered a bad neighborhood was upper middle class back then. It was filled with professionals, hard working honest people who just wanted to raise their children in a good, safe neighborhood. This was before, in the 60's it was safe to stay out until the street lights or your parents forced you to move inside. We could trick or treat with out fear that the home made treats may be poisoned. It was magical, I know that your mind can change the reality of what is or was, and mine is probably not exact. However when I travel back in my mind I see shiney clean streets and smiling faces. Homes tended for and loved. I had been in every single home on our block at one time or another. I have always been an outgoing gregarious person. Mom said that I could talk the ear off a mule, this is a trait I have tried to disgard, it is a trait that used to endear me to people but in the modern age I am viewed as different and a freak. More often then not I am looked at like I am some weird entity to be laughed at and shunned. It has happened so many times that I can see the signs of people using tolorance and the ones that think I am an idiot. I don't like to talk to people anymore, because it hurts.  Mean people don't care they will laugh at you so you know, sometimes in your face sometimes as you walk away, but they make sure you know.I forget, when I meet someone so unique and so open and I chat. It happened yesterday at a yardsale, my daughter and I saw a sign that intrigued us so we went. They were an older couple who's children all moved so far away that they had no need for the baby toys anymore. One to Ohio, one to Russia, so they were cleaning house. The husband was an educated man, someone I suspected as being a professor or some kind of teacher also a consumate sales person and he saw the target painted on my forhead...I am not sure if I am labeled with sucker or Yes I will buy anything. But they seem to see it and hone in on me. He offered me his more expensive items, ooooo I wanted but resisted, then I saw this:

It is a type cast drawer. I pointed it out to my daughter and told her what it was used for, I caught his attention. It had been in his family since he was a boy his dad used to have a printing press and he used to set type for his dad after school. He had toted these drawers with him over hill and dale ending up in Lincoln, Nebraska.Was I intrested...no I wasn't, He had 12.00 on it, how could he put a price on a piece of his history and heart? I am a sucker for peoples stories, my home is filled with peoples stories, Rose's tea cups, another woman's husband's wine bottle she kept for 65 years then sold to me at a yard sale for 25 cents. A doll lovingly made by a grandmother sold for 2.00. It hurts my heart that people disgard love so easily. It is just a thing to them, but to me it is history, a part of their lives as long as someone knows the story they don't die, they will be remembered. So I have them write the story and I keep it with the item and in this way their story will never fade away. One day I will be gone and mine will just be a story written on a piece of paper attached to some item sitting on someone's shelf. I hope they don't disgard it at a yard sale....how can you put a price on a person's heart? If I wanted the drawer he would sell it to me for 10.00... no I didn't want it but I knew the story and that was the hook...okay but only if they write the story down for me, he got me...plus I liked these people. Then the neighbor got home from work and came over.I could see in his face that I was to be tolorated but not encoraged it was time to leave. As I walked away I heard laughter....sigh. We all do it, but remember this, a fat person knows they are fat, an ulgy person knows they are ugly and a fool knows when they are being laughed at. No one needs to tell them, so next time when you come across that silly someone that talks too much or makes you want to giggle, remember they have a story also. There is a reason they are the way they are, that one moment in your life may touch that person more then you may ever know... Reach out with love instead of riddecule, their laughter made that piece worthless to me, story or not. I will be throwing it away like the 10.00 I spent to get it. C'est La Vie!