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When GrandGear Runneth Over
by Mike Slosberg
Got too much grandkid stuff hanging around? You're not alone.
I don’t know about you, but the only grandchild memorabilia I keep around is a single picture of the kid, which I update whenever I’m sent a new picture… like once a year… maybe.
But I just returned from an eye-opening trip to Florida, visiting my buddy Larry, and his wife, who, by comparison, have transformed their condo into a veritable shrine to their grandchild, Max. I never realized there was such a massive amount of stuff available for one to demonstrate adoration of a grandchild on a 24/7 basis. It only served to show how light I am on my GrandGear. I only hope my thoughtless neglect hadn’t perpetrated too much damage on my poor grandchild.
So, using the list I’d compiled of my friends’ GrandGear, I fired up my computer, determined to track down their goodies, and find out how much it would cost to catch up.
It was a jaw-dropping journey.
I could relate somewhat to the photo mouse pad, the photo refrigerator magnets, the photo T-shirts, and the photo coffee mugs (at $7.99, $4.79, $14.99, $11.19, respectively, from Shutterfly.com). But a tooth-fairy pillow? And a combination baby-tooth storage and tooth-fairy bank? (All at Dentist.net.) This is a bit much.
Bronzed baby shoes have been around almost as long as bronze has been around. But the newest iteration of this is the photo realistic oil painting of your grandchildren's shoes. Any of their shoes. Her first little pair of ballet slippers or his Little League baseball cleats. Whatever. Each pair rendered, for all time, in thickly applied oil paints. (A 12 inch x 12 inch PediPortrait, a laughingly low $250 at AlishaArd.com.)
Then there is the First Haircut Keepsake Certificate. Suitable for framing, of course (a bargain at $15 from PlannersGuide.com
). And the lock-of-hair shadow box (free directions for making one of your own at Wondertime.go.com).
But the one that really knocked me out was the Baby Time Capsule (available at BeyondGifts.com for $18.95). Imagine the fun you’ll have filling it with all manner of grandkid memorabilia. (But, please, try not to imagine where you’ll be 20 or 30 years from now, when the damned thing gets opened up.)
Seeing all this stuff, and having witnessed how my friends relate to their collection, I was reminded of a strange sociological phenomenon known as the cargo cult. The most widely known period of cargo cultitude activity was in the Southwest Pacific, in the years during and after World War II, when tons of goodwill were poured onto the islands by the American military.
The chosen area, it's said, had never before been exposed to Western civilization. So when vast amounts of cargo suddenly came tumbling from the sky, seemingly by magic, you can understand how stunned the native inhabitants must have been. It’s hard to even postulate the impact of seeing, for the very first time, canned goods, manufactured clothing, medicine, tents, and all manner of other goodies –– floating down, suspended from fluffy, cloud-like silk parachutes.
And then, not too long after, to have the war end… just as abruptly. The military bases were quickly abandoned, and all the wonderful cargo simply disappeared.
The natives, however, wanting it all back, continued to look longingly to the empty skies, believing these gods would return, since, in their logic, only gods were powerful enough to produce such riches.
But the gods were gone. In desperation, they attempted to bring them back, by mimicking what they had seen. They carved headphones from wood and wore them while sitting in fabricated control towers, scanning the heavens for the big silver birds. They fashioned replicas of radios from coconuts and painted Army insignias on their bodies. They fashioned and worshipped huge straw airplanes.
And then I thought back to my friends Larry and his wife and how their grandson had appeared, at least metaphorically speaking, suddenly and magically. And how they were using all the GrandGear to try and preserve the magic, to try and hold that early memory, for as long as possible. Because, in truth, their grandchild, Max, was now 16 years old. Deep into his adolescence, acne, and rebellion phase. So, if and when he ever came to Florida to visit, he’d probably be at the beach with his friends. Larry and the missus would be lucky to see him at all. At least they'd have their coffee mug.
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53 Answers
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Way too much. My house is a shrine.
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I have a lot, but it's confined.
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There's always room for more.
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A bit. But what I do have is great.
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None. I need to get on this right away.
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| Hello,
I am the artist of the custom shoe portraits and would like to make a statement. I do not paint in "thickly applied oil paint", I only paint in acrylics as I am raising two young children of my own and do not wish to expose them to the toxic chemicals involved in painting with oils. I would have appreciated you actually viewing a piece of my work in person before criticizing them.
I started painting shoe portraits to capture moments of my own children's youth. Bronzing was not an option when my daughter fell in love with little canvas tennis-shoes covered in tiny colorful polk-a-dots. If I bronzed them, that detail - the colorful dots that are so key to capturing a piece of my 2-year-olds zany personality at this time in her life - would be lost and I'd have an ordinary-looking pair of bronzed shoes.
When people order custom shoe portraits from me they are guaranteed they have the original painting for life. They will never find their custom portraits being sold in prints (limited run or mass produced) just for me to make an extra buck - which is why I have decided on my pricing list. $120 -$250 is not outrageous for an original heirloom piece to commemorate something as precious as our children's (or grandchildren's) youth. These are not meant to be something you hang on the wall for a little while and throw out. Even if you take the painting off the wall, keep it - make it a gift to the wearer of the shoes one day. There is one dress my grandmother sewed for me in kindergarten that I wish I still had to pass on to my daughter. Things that children truly cherish are not forgotten.
Thank you,
Alisha K. Ard - artist
Painting Life's Footsteps
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