At Christmastime I was taking pictures of the living room with fireplace and tree, when I noticed something that didn't quite belong. You know, just like the Sesame Street song.... It was an object we inherited from John's parents many years ago:
Yes, it's an elephants foot, made into a waste paper basket. A real elephant's foot. It came from John's mother's family. Her father was the representative of the British crown in Malaya. He used to travel from place to place to hold court on elephant back and this was a foot from his favorite elephant who died. When John's father died and John had to decide what things to ship over to America from the family home he asked the children what memories of their grandparents they might like. Their choices were two: 1. All the Beatrice Potter books, and 2 The elephant's foot.
So we, being more practical had a container full of antique furniture, Asian ceramics etc shipped, plus one elephant's foot. It's fun to notice guests' reaction when they spot it. Actually I'm rather fond of it.
So do you have an item with a strange story in your house?
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Rhys, that's weird. Yup, weird. Mine is a little less--real. I got this in Atlanta, when I did an On The Road series, travelling all over Georgia looking for interesting TV stories. I found this in a front yard, surrounded by other similar things. It was sweltering, incredibly hot as only Georgia can be, and there was this guy. Looking very out of place. Calculating now, it was in 1979, so how long ago was that? But I've had him ever since.
HALLIE EPHRON: The weirdest thing in my house is the network of wires that crisscross our basement ceiling. Turns out it's a massive shortwave radio antenna that hooks up to a brass outlet in the living room floor where you'd connect the radio... if you had one. It doesn't photograph very well, so here's another offbeat item.
Meet Osgood. Not sure why we call him that, but he's a mask that hangs on the wall of our sunroom, his eyes bloodshot and forever sticking out his tongue. My husband picked him up during a trip to Venezuela. He used to creep out our kids.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Hallie, Osgood creeps me out, too!
No weird critters around our house (if you exclude dear hubby:-)). But it's an old house, with lots of quirks. One of the strangest was the space in the old walk-in kitchen pantry that went up right into the attic. We could only guess that when the house was built in 1905 there was a woodburning stove there that vented up through the attic. I have a pre-remodel photo somewhere, but instead I'm going to show you a weird OUTSIDE thing--the swing. The old man who lived here for thirty or forty years worked, we think, for the phone company, and he brought home all sorts of things. There's a patio made of iron squares, and a full-size telephone pole. And there is the swing, made from industrial pipes. We planted the native coral honeysuckle that twines over it now. Whenever I think about giving our landscaping a facelift, I consider having the swing dug out. But then... there's nothing else quite like it and I'd kind of hate to see it go...
So who else has something weird and wonderful around their house? Voodoo masks anybody?
