Bemused and charmed

Tonight's unpacking bemusement comes from my having unwrapped the Ziploc bag holding the wheels from my great-great-grandparents' bed frame. I haven't had them on the bed since moving it to Minnesota most of 20 years ago. I probably looked at them when I put them in the bag, but there wasn't any context for bemusement then. The wheel bracket is embossed with information from the manufacturer. "GEM" appears to be the model name for these particular wheels. Additional inventory information suggests that one of them was made 19 Ap 1798, but I'm probably misinterpreting the data, because two other wheels end with 1788 and 1793 and it just doesn't seem likely that the wheels were make 10 year apart. More likely they were from a batch of consecutively numbered wheels.

That's not the bemusing part, though. The bemusing part is that the wheels were made by H.B. Schenck & Co. of Meriden, Connecticut. Meriden was the town south of Hartford that I had the very worst reaction to when I was exploring last summer. Not only did I not want to live in Meriden, I didn't ever want to drive through it again. Nothing bad happened to me there or anything; the place just set off numerous "not comfortable here; really not comfortable here; don't fit here; too easily targeted as a victim here" triggers in me. Hadn't ever heard of the place before last summer -- went looking at it after seeing listings for several properties in my price range. Sure enough, the few I found were complete dumps from the outside.

So I didn't move to Meriden...but I do have a set of four wheels made there sometime before the 1860s. And a name and phone number of a Meriden historian who just might know something more about the company. Color me bemused.

As for the charmed, here's tonight's note, found in the second layer of the dishpack full of coffee mugs:

"We wish you well in this next adventure
but remember you can always come home"

Kate Worley, RIP

Earlier today, markiv1111 posted the news to Minn-StF Natter that Kate Worley died yesterday. She'd been struggling with cancer for a few years, and the news back around Minicon time didn't sound at all good, so the surprise factor is missing, but the sadness is not.

I fell out of touch with Kate after she moved to Oklahoma and married Jim Vance. Sympathies to him, and to their children, Jacob and Sarah. I hadn't even been up on the recent news that she and Reed Waller had professionally reconciled and were working on finishing "Omaha the Cat Dancer."

I wish our paths had crossed more often, that there had been more music parties, more conventions where we caught up a bit on what we were each up to. I wish I'd met her family while she was alive. I wish cancer had never entered the story, let alone ended it.

"Gotta get out of the city sometimes
Get out of your job, and into your mind
Aren't you glad you came? I know I am.
With sparklers we can make it the 4th of July
It's as American as music and apple pie
Like eating homemade bread, spread with cinnamon jam."

That's the chorus of Cinnamon Jam, a song Kate wrote and that the Shakers recorded on their Omaha album. The band used to rehearse in my basement.

The days, they do pass. And, sometimes, we with them.