Mrs Karminskis Ornaments

When you clean houses you get to see the strangest ornaments, Some collections are a defense and a wall of armaments, Others represent a lifetime of memories and recollections, A wonderful improvement on memory’s imperfections. Perhaps the strangest objects were on Mrs Karminski’s shelves. She had roaring lions, beautiful birds and wizards and elves. She once sat me down and explained what some of them meant to her. “Well let’s see, This Lioness was given to me by my husband,George It must have been around 1957.We were just married,I only 17.I told him I was pregnant but that he didn’t have to worry I was going to take care of it. I knew that Mrs Comody would get rid of the baby before it was too late. Abortion was illegal in those days and I had to go all alone. George didn’t like that sort of thing. George left a few months after that. Mrs Comody must have made a mess of it because I wasn’t able to have any children . The lioness was for bravery I guess. Mrs Karminski started to cry. “Sorry about that I guess I shouldn’t have started with that one. Well this next one is a Heron. That is a water bird. They use their pointy beck to catch fish. I won it in a Fair Ground in Linton. I was dating Sidney and we had to throw coconuts at some tin cans. I managed to knock them all over in one throw. The prize was this bird. I really loved Sidney. Oh he was tall and handsome and rich, but the bastard was married. One day I opened my front door and this crazy women threw chicken’s blood all over me. Ruined a perfectly good white dress I had on. I found out later that it was Sidney’s wife. I never heard from him again. The Heron reminds me of tolerating the unfaithful. “Well this last ornament is a little Red panda. I was given this one on my 30th birthday by my best black girlfriend Cheryl. She was a wonderful friend. We loved each other very much. Cheryl was bashed to death by some KKK men because she used a White only tap in the park. Red Panda’s are solitary bears. They choose to live life alone. I have done that myself. The Red Panda is for Solitude. I guess that’s my life: Bravery, Tolerance and Solitude. Not a bad way to live, I thought.