In praise of stuff
I am first reunited with the homely and comfortable: I settle myself in the familiar corner, under a blue knitted wool blanket, with a tag that reads Handmade With Love by Kathleen E—. To my right is one of my father’s many furniture creations, stumps of trees sanded down and finished, or scrapwood configured into striking geometric edifices. In the kitchen is the long work and dining table built by one of his buddies. Across from me is the shronk, a word in the family idiolect whose probable Pennsylvania Dutch origins have now been lost to time, which refers to the massive wooden hutch that my great grandmother had made from the paneling of her farmhouse.
