Oldest Item?

What’s the oldest thing you own that you still use daily?

I’m a bit baffled by this prompt. I don’t think anything I have fits this category. As I look back on my life I think of it as several lifetimes. Before College, The College Years, Post-Graduate, Career, and now Retirement. And having moved physically a number of times during those eras, many things have not survived.

I do have one old piece of furniture that does hold some books; maybe that fits this category. It’’s a Federal period (reproduction) secretary. When I lived on Lindbergh Avenue in York as a kid, an old woman named Clara Landis lived on the second floor. I have many aural memories of her,since she wore clumpy old lady shoes and the wooden floors magnified the sound. When she would venture out for the evening paper she’d come clattering down the steps and go out. After the walk to the newsstand, she clumped up the stairs one slow step at a time.

One day she fell and broke a hip (late 1960s, early 1970s?), and was told she would not be able to return to her apartment. She said I could have either of her two secretaries and any books I wanted. I’m not sure I still have any of the books, but the secretary is still in my possession. It made its way to California for the Berkeley years, then to NorthEast PA, down to West Virginia, and now back to Western Pennsylvania. It’s traveled quite a bit in space, and certainly has traveled through time.