Old Flames and Finds

At yesterday's Greenland Sharks breakfast, Greg shared that he’d been going through his mom’s house in Iowa. She recently moved into an extended care facility, so last week he and his brother were on cleanup duty. Probably one of many before they sell the family home.

Now, you'd think this kind of task would be depressing, but Greg was basically living out an episode of Antiques Roadshow meets Indiana Jones. He found a fez hat (See above), WWI memorabilia, a working turntable, and Viewmaster with the original slides in the sleeves. Man stuff. Artifacts. Things with weight. Stuff that smells like history and maybe a little like old carpet. It was very exciting to see pictures of the items as he sent them over the group texts.

But then… came the candles.

Greg said it started with one box. Then another. Then a hall closet full of candles. Then a decorative drawer that was, surprise, just more candles. Tall ones, short ones, ones shaped like reindeer, pears, weird Victorian angels.

I laughed, went home, and casually brought it up to my wife. “Hey, weird thing… Greg found like fifty candles in his mom’s house. Can you believe that?”

She didn’t even look up from what she was doing: “Oh, we have a box of candles in the basement.”

Wait… what?

“A box?” I asked. “Yeah. Like, a plastic bin.”

“Full of candles?”

It hit me like a blast of “Autumn Clove Delight.” Candles are the Johnny Carson fruitcake of the domestic world. I thought people just regifted the same one every Christmas, but no I thought— maybe women store these things. Maybe they collect them. Like baseball cards. But instead of rookies and stats, they have labels like “Cozy Hearth,” “Mistletoe Morning,” and “Eucalyptus Breeze (Limited Edition).”

I will fully admit it: candles make my throat itch. I don’t know what it is—maybe it’s the scent of pine chemically enhanced to smell like extra pine, or cinnamon that burns like pepper spray—but the minute someone lights one, I start clearing my throat like I am getting the flu.

Men don’t collect candles. We collect cool stuff. Just look at American Pickers. That show doesn’t start with a guy digging through a drawer of Yankee Candle votives. It starts in a barn full of gas station signs, old motorcycles, radios from the Eisenhower era, and metal lunch boxes featuring cartoon characters that would now get you canceled.

So I ask you: why do women keep candles? Especially old ones from Christmas past? Are they waiting for the right occasion to burn that three-wick, red-and-green peppermint monstrosity shaped like a wreath? News flash: it’s never the right time. That candle is a fire hazard and it smells like regret.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe those candles are comfort. Maybe they’re time capsules. Maybe they remind them of a certain holiday, a grandmother’s house, or the way life smelled before everything got so fast.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep my man memorabilia. The small Danish desk I work on that my Dad wrote his sermons on. My records and turntable. My Trumpet I have not played since High School. My cassette tapes that no one but me can play.

Because in the end, we all collect something.

Women collect scents. Men collect rust. And Greg collects fez hats.

We’re all just trying to hold onto something that smells like home.