Flashback Friday # 125

Grandma's Curio Cabinet

A cheery hello on this dreary Winter's day. Welcome back to another edition of Flashback Friday. Today we visit a place that provided me many hours of entertainment, Grandma's curio cabinet.

My paternal grandmother (the one that lived in Westerville) had a penchant for collecting small figurines, miniature spoon & cocktail forks and salt & pepper shakers. All of her pretties were displayed in and old secretary/curio cabinet that looked much like the one below that I saw in Amish country.

The only difference between this and the one she had is hers had a large crack in the glass of the door. It ran from near the lock all the way across to just below the bottom shelf. This crack was covered over by masking tape that had grown yellow & brittle. Touch that tape and you would get cracked.

The neat thing about this cabinet is that grandma let the grand kids play with the contents inside. We were allowed to play with anything in there, as long as we put them back after we had finished playing with it. You would not believe the adventures we had with salt & pepper shakers. Look at the pictures below and tell me that you couldn't have fun with these:

Sir Gattabout & I would have epic battles with giant chickens, flying swordfish, skunks, and funny looking people. One of my favorite sets was two older men. The salt wore a white shirt, was bald, had his hands in his side pockets and was smoking a cigar. The pepper wore a red shirt, had a fringe of gray hair, wore a derby, had his hands in his back packets and also smoked a cigar. Another favorite set consisted of a longhorn that had purple, yellow, pink & green hues. That was the sugar bowl. From the horns hung two smaller longhorns who's horns came together to make a loop. These were the salt & pepper. They were similarly colored.

Also in the cabinet was a small box containing marbles. I had fun looking at them and rolling them down some Hot Wheels track that was there. My Great-Uncle Charles (he of Flashback Friday #113) taught me how to shoot & play marbles. He wasn't too keen about kneeling on the sidewalk, but there was a spot indoors where he could kneel on the carpet and shoot onto a spot on the wood floor. We couldn't draw a chalk circle on the wood floor, so he took some white thread and made a circle to place the marbles in. He always beat me.

There were some old books in there too. The one I remember most was titled "Behind the Red Curtain". The cover of the book said it was shocking and risque. When you opened the book, there was a red piece of cloth. When you lifted it up, there was a bias relief picture (that's raised, for those who didn't know) of a little boy sitting on a chamber pot.

Alas, when Grandma passed, in order to quickly settle her estate, the contents of the house was sold to an antique deal at a ridiculously low price.