Demolition and Discovery

As the giddiness of the new house wears off, I become a bit more focused. I take up my hammer and crowbar and and tear into the bathroom, the only room in the house that we are gutting down to the bones. Opening up the bathroom walls, all of her systems are exposed, and so far they look healthy. But the demolition comes with a bit of anxiety, because a false move can send water gushing into the room or sparks flying. I'm not a plumber or an electrician, so I spend a good deal of time staring at these systems and trying to decipher them. I remember that there is an access door to the tub in the bedroom closet so I decide to open it up and have a peek.

There's a tradition amongst tradesmen to burry objects inside of walls and woodwork before they close them up. They become time capsules; little messages left for some future worker to uncover. I've uncovered a few and I've left many. They are usually something that speaks of the time period, of who the people were who built the house. The most common is a newspaper. Unfortunately, a 100 year old newspaper does not hold up very well, and attempting to even turn the page can make it disintegrate into dust. So I pick them up carefully and decipher what I can on the exposed pages. If I'm lucky, I can make out a date, a few headlines and some adds for new cars selling for a couple hundred dollars.

I open up the access door and examine the plumbing for a while and then I see it; a wadded up newspaper tucked into a corner beneath the tub. I have no way of knowing whether it was left intentionally as a time capsule or if it was just used to wipe up a spill after a leak in the plumbing, but either way, there it is, and I know that it contains clues to a different time. I turn it over looking for a date and I can't find one. There is an ad for the Sound of Music, which, if it is referring to the movie, would place the newspaper somewhere around 1965, or, if it was the broadway musical, it could be 1959 or any time since. There is an editorial talking about why the Pabst Theatre is worth saving and a headline that reads "Plant Worker Gets a Beating". On the back there is an article about four people dying in a house fire and I shudder and pray that its not an omen. I place the paper on the buffet in the dining room, and decide that I'll examine it more closely later.

I'm looking for a door to cover up the tub while I'm tearing out the plaster and I remember theres a stack of old doors piled up by the basement toilet - in the room with the clown painting. I start pulling out doors and stacking them in another room and there are more than I thought. I find the old swinging kitchen doors and the original storm door. Unfortunately its a bit too far gone to use, but now we know what to look for to replace it.

Pulling out the last door, I'm startled by a face, and I can hardly believe my eyes. Its another crying clown!!!

Removing the door from the room, a scene emerges; two clowns facing each other with a toilet in between. Whose bizarre sense of humor was it that dreamt up this uncomfortable configuration? Certainly not the one who bought the paintings originally. At one point these were cherished objects. They are both original paintings, done by one Ruby Hoiland of Pasadena, California. And original paintings, however hokey, are not cheap.

After a while, when doing a job involving repetitive motions, the task starts becoming automatic, and the mind begins to wander. Back in the bathroom, I get to daydreaming, and I start thinking about that wadded up newspaper sitting on top of the buffet. Why was it rolled up like that? Was there something inside? If someone needed to hide something in this house, a logical place would be behind the access door to the tub. It was screwed shut when I got to it, almost as if somebody was trying to keep people out. Maybe there are drugs inside. Maybe there's money. Maybe there's a gun! This last thought piques my curiosity and I go to the dining room to examine it further. I pick it up. Of course theres not a gun; it hardly weighs anything. I start to unroll it and it begins to crumble. I pause and set it back down on the buffet.