Ooohh! Oohh! I was not going to respond to this thread. But I am.
First,… cathartic event. My house burned down and all I walked away with was a bass drum, two uniquely signatured (heat treated) cymbals and $60 cash that somehow survived in the remaining 2" x 2" x 2" corner of the drawer of a dresser that was otherwise ash. That, and what I was wearing. A very significant $60 in my life (a bit crisp). Makes movin’ easy.
That was the throw away. My more significant(?) answer to Drain’s (I just love knowing a woman named Drain < wink >) question follows. I played drums and percussion for 25 years. I played with many lousy bands, and a couple of good ones. I only played with one that worked hard and regularly. And others that produced some decent tune and worked spasmodically. And all points in between. For all the recordings, gig posters, photos and all that were made, I have none. Through various circumstance (such as not having dupe capabilities at the time - '81 - when the rhythm guitarist for the Austin band that was one of the good ones passed through the Houston Med Center after trying to swallow a semi whole and I just felt it was more important to get him talking again so I gave his wife the only tape I had - or - when my Mom borrowed a tape I made when I visited North Texas State and played with about 20 of their tunemeisters and she got into a duel to the death with her cassette player for possession of the tape) it has come to pass that I do not possess a single material bit of evidence of what was a large part of my life. Well, I’ve still got the drums and various other things you can hit, beat, tap or rub; but I stopped playing several years ago.
And TL, yeah, me too. I hope all our lost minds have congregated out there in the haze and are having a high old time of it.
I had a necklace with a gold key as the charm; it also had a diamond on the key. Anyway, I had wanted it for a long time and didn’t have the apr 200$ to buy it. I had separated from my Xhusband by then and he was the only one who would buy me any jewelry at the time. Somehow I convinced him to buy it and then we were divorced a couple of months later. This had so much symbolism for me, that my X bought me this key and gave it to me.
How did it get lost?
Well, it was a couple of years later and I was at my now husband’s apartment. The chain broke during, well you know, and I put it next to his bed…never to be seen again. I could buy another one just like it; I know they still have them. But come on, no symbolism. Gee, I wonder what happened to it in that small apartment.
“Let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair…”
Tom Waits
Ahhh, jewelry. I NEVER wear it. But I did wear one thing, for about three years. I had a very cool silver necklace that I got for high school graduation, a wax-cast crescent moon with a star dangling from a jump ring in the center of it. I LOVED this necklace. The first time I fucked it up was when I forgot I had it hanging over my turtleneck, and took the turtleneck off. The chain, which was incredibly thin and dainty, just snapped. I picked up the pieces with tears in my eyes and put the pendant in a box. My mom, for a Christmas present that year, bought me a new chain for it.
The next year, I was at a Halloween party (I think this may have been the party before my CD was destroyed). While I was playing a game of cards, I noticed that the pendant part had fallen off the chain. The top jump ring was loose. Being drunk, I stuck the pendant in my pocket, forgot about it, and later washed the overalls I was wearing. No more necklace.
I have no idea where it was purchased, so I don’t know how to replace it. I’ll probably never be able to love another piece of jewelry again after that. When I realized what I’d done, I actually cried. That necklace was nearly a part of me for years, and for weeks after I’d lost it, I would reach up to play with it like I used to do, only to find it wasn’t there. I miss it.
Save The Endangered Jackalope! Send Cash Now! If You Do This, I Will Use The Cash To Save Any Jackalope That I Happen To Find! Send Cash Now! Before It’s Too Late! My Bills, I Mean The Jackalope’s Bills Are Due The 15th Of The Month! This has been a message from the Illuminated Committee To Save The Jackalope. Fnord.
My very first 10 speed bike, in college, was stolen 5 days after I got it. I may have chained it such that it was chained to itself and not the bike rack.
I went around looking for it, thinking I had walked home from somewhere and left it chained, but no, it really was stolen.
I lost my engagement ring when I was 17. I was living in Georgia at the time and it was very hot/cold there…hot outside, cold in the air conditioning…which generally causes my hands to swell and then shrink back down. Unfortunately, my fingers were at their normal size as I flushed the toilet one day and WHOOSH! went the engagement ring. If I were a clever bear, which I am not, I would have realized that that was an omen. However, being a bear of little brain, I ended up in a marriage that ended much as the ring did-- down the toilet. Oh, bother.
“One evening I pulled Beauty down on my knees.
I found her embittered and I cursed her.”
–Excerpt from Une Saison en Enfer
–A. Rimbaud
Lost quite a few things, but the most significant in a way was an old musket ball.
I bought a farm in Pennsylvania many years ago.
When we were planting the garden our little girl found a small ball covered with white powder. It was very heavy and I thought it might be a bullet from a black powder gun as we had a lot of hunting in our area.
The farm was a gift from the gov’t to a officer in the Revolutionary War.
I had a curator at a museum test it and he said it was a musket ball that was about 175 years old! At that time the area was had few people in it and was just being settled.
Needless to say, our little girl liked it and may have liked to play with it when mommy and daddy weren’t looking. She was 8 at the time.
Anyway it came up missing. My wife said we would eventually find it and later we moved without it ever being found.
We actually made up the expression, “Gone the way of the musket ball” to refer to something that would probably never be found again.
ps The thing that I lost that was the greatest to me was my family. There are only two of us left. My wife is gone, my daughter (my only child) and I lost my sister this year after a bout with Crohn’s disease.
I lost a leather jacket by leaving it behind at a party. I had gotten it at the Salvation Army for five dollars, and yes, it was real leather. The SA workers must have drank their lunch the day they priced it. Anyway, I’d had it about five years, and it was starting to split beyond repair, when I took it off at a party and got too loaded to remember it when I left. I called the next day, and the equally hungover host claimed not to know anything about it.
I also lost a jean jacket when I was four years old. I think it was actually stolen. I wore it to Bible school, took it off and left it in the auditorium, and never saw it again. It had to have been taken by someone, because only the small group of people I was with was in the auditorium when we left. It wasn’t turned in to the clothing donations, or at least they said it hadn’t. And this church/school was on a country road, so no one walked in off the street and took it. It had to have been either someone from the church, or someone on the custodial staff, who were not church members. I would like to think it was the latter, although it wouldn’t be the first time a corrupt person hid behind the cross. Note, I’m only condemning the individual who stole it, not the organization.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green