Five Before Chaos

As Jenni and I are rearranging a lot of things in the house to make use of the addition and the new attic space, we’re getting rid of a lot of stuff. If I haven’t reread those 14 year old copies of Bass Player Magazine by now, I’m probably not going to, right? Anyways, one of the things that was taking up a lot of attic space was a desk I bought at an estate sale, shortly after my divorce (as I had very little furniture). It’s one of those heavy-ass 100% wood desks with a thick piece of glass on it, all-wood locking mechanisms, and brass handles. I love it, because I love old things like that, and perhaps there’s something symbolic about it ushering in a new era in my life.

Anyways, when Jenni moved in three years ago, I stored the desk (it’s quite large) and bought one of those shitty computer desks at Staples, which proceeded to fall apart rather quickly, especially from the weight of my studio monitor speakers. I really missed using the big desk, so we set it back up last night. One of the drawers is sort of like a file cabinet, which I used for papers, and there was a bunch of stuff in there from the previous owner, as well. It’s really like a time capsule. Jump below the fold for some of the treasures I’ve found.

From what I can gather, the desk was owned by a man named D.A. Lane, an entrepreneur who had a manufacturing plant in East Montpelier that “manufactured stoneworking and sawmill machinery”, according to the letterhead on his notepad. There’s a lot of ancient stationery in the desk…notepads, old pencils, graph paper, paper clips, etc. There was this box of index tabs, complete with perky secretary:

There’s a lot of business-related correspondence. Check out the date of this letter:

There’s a ton of blueprints, as well, most dated from 1918:

There’s payroll records, employee seniority records, a labor contract with The United Stone and Allied Workers of America, CIO, Branch # 58 from 1948, shipper’s export papers, various publications for executives giving them tips and news on how to deal with unions, and 1940’s Dept. of Labor regulations. It’s really a fascinating glimpse into a bygone era when unions were much stronger.

Mr. Lane, in his retirement, traveled northwards, as there’s a Canadian fishing guide from 1976, as well as this tour book from Alaska from 1977. Jenni found this of interest, as she was born in Alaska in 1977:

Of course, the desk was also a snapshot of my life from 2003 to 2005. I was reunited with my much-beloved remote controlled fart machine. I also found all of my divorce papers. Yay! There was also some music-related stuff from 1992 when I was in a band called “Five Before Chaos”. Most striking to me was a huge folder that reminded me that I used to be a hardcore forestry activist; there’s tons of letters from Leahy, Jeffords, Dodd, Leiberman, Forest Service people and many others. There’s a lot of Earth First! stuff in there, early David Foreman writings and such, monkeywrenching, all that stuff. I’d really forgotten how deep I was into those things back in the day. The GOP takeover of Congress in ‘94 was my rallying cry/awakening, so to speak. There were also various newspapers:

Ah, those were the days when the worst thing a prez could do was get a blow job. We were surely blessed compared to now.

I’m just happy to be sitting at this old beast again. It’s quite the treasure.

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