Jim Reardon
Editor’s note: This is one of the three runner up pieces in Storied Stuff’s first annual writing contest.
When I finally graduated from college (after dropping out, working as a house painter/carpenter; seven long years, and doubts from my family that it would ever happen}, I moved into a co-worker’s attic --my first apartment on my own.
The single room’s only redeeming quality was a large skylight that I found potentially romantic, in the starving artist vein. No running water or kitchen, and a shared bath with three other apartments on the second floor. You had to crawl up the last couple of steps to fully enter and stand up straight. Along with my limited funds, I’m sure it made me a very appealing dating prospect. Humble would be too grand a word, but at $50 a month, it was within my paltry budget.
Garret-like as it was, I was determined to make it home, and at a garage sale I found as my first “decorative” additions to my monk-like warren--the two treasures pictured: two thermometers, the first from Waukegan National Bank, the town where I was born and lived at the time, and another from Evanston Auto Repainting. Evanston, a town that I only knew of through track meets and wrestling matches in high school.
Aside from the price, a dollar each, I think I was drawn to the simplicity of advertising from an earlier era; giving away a free thermometer to remind customers to come back and do business. The phone number of the Evanston one hints at its age, containing only three numbers.
I eventually, and thankfully, moved on to other domiciles--in Chicago, Half Day, Lake Zurich, Lake Bluff and Lake Forest among others--and many decorative themes gave way to passing trends, many purchases discarded along the way. But these first two accessories have stayed with me for 55 years, and, like many of the objects in our lives, they took on meaning beyond their meager exterior.
The locations of the businesses on the thermometers, though I never could have known it five decades ago, have become the geographical bookends of my life. Waukegan, the place I was born and raised and loved coming of age in. And Evanston, the place where I have now lived for the last 17 years, where I have grown older (certainly not old!), hope to remain in for the years remaining, and have also loved in the same way I love my birthplace.
I smile as I pass them sometimes, hanging by our front door where we enter and exit each day, more than just decoration now, imbued with meaning beyond advertising or temperature; reminders of the circuitous journey that has led me home.