The burden of our illusions

   

     Saturday morning I handled two cutting surfaces.
     The first was a small cutting board, a white, plastic, five-by-eight inch rectangle. We were having lox and bagels for breakfast, and I used it to slice up some cucumbers to go on top. Typically tomatoes are used for this purpose, but this isn't the season for tomatoes and, frankly, I like cucumbers better.
     The other was an enormous butcher block that I moved a few feet to vacuum underneath. It occurred to me that it has been many years since I've cut anything on it; typically it sits in the corner of our dining room, with a strip of South American cloth on it. Not the ideal spot for a cutting board — it belongs in a kitchen. But there isn't room there.
     How, you might wonder, does a person end up with such a thing? And the answer is, well, embarrassing. But I'll give it anyway. When I was a young man, and began to work, and receive a regular paycheck, from holding a job, there were two purchases that I considered with my newfound solvency.

     The first was a set of stamps, Scott #C13-15, the Graf Zeppelin set. I'd been a stamp collector growing up, with a special fondness for airmail stamps, and an aesthetic appreciation for zeppelins. They looked cool. I had always wanted this particular set, produced specifically for letters carried aboard that famous airship. They cost about $600 back then. But I saw that purchase as impractical.
     So instead I bought this butcher block at J.D. Brauner on Ashland Avenue. Something useful, a kitchen tool. I know I custom ordered it, nearly 40 years ago, because I remember pondering whether to get it with wheels or not. On one hand, I thought the wheels would detract from the clean line of the legs. On the other, I also knew that butcher blocks are intensely heavy, and that being able to roll it would be of practical value. Butcher blocks also tend to be square, and I got this one in a rectangular shape, to make it less massive. So in the spirit of practicality, I ordered the wheels.

     Why? Well, the honest answer is, that as a young man, I felt I needed a butcher block. To cut up things. And to add to the continual festivity that would be my life. Indeed, I remember, when we lived on Logan Boulevard, using it to dice meat to go into enormous pots of jambalaya and chili, and cut bags of citrus to go into the rum punches which I liked to prepare. The block did see use, based on the cross-hatching of cuts slashed across the top, which I used to regularly dose with block oil. 

   I'm only mildly embarrassed by all this, because I imagine most people have some tangible representation of their youthful illusions, whether an object, or a tattoo, or a scar — some people manage to combine a butcher block with a scar, a professional chef of my acquaintance who contrived to pull hers over — they are top heavy — and broke her foot. Looking back, I wish I'd gone with the zeppelin stamps instead — they're more beautiful than a butcher block, and a mint set will run you $1,750, so their value tripled, while I doubt the butcher block would draw much from anybody — I'd probably have to pay someone to haul it away.

     My wife would get rid of it in a heartbeat. But I've refused. Sure, it's been useless these past, umm, nearly 40 years. But maybe it's just biding its time, waiting for its true use to manifest itself. As it is, it stands very stolidly in the corner of our dining room, holding whatever is put upon it very steadily and without complaint. It represents something, that big hunk of wood. I'm not sure exactly what. The burden of our illusions perhaps. Anyway, I imagine — or at least hope — that I'm not alone in this. 

   So what's yours?