Wades Beach: Out of the Ashes

I have never been in a housefire before. I was fairly shocked to have it happen. Since Chrissie was OK (she was at the house, I was in New York) and no firefighters were hurt, what else was there to worry about?

My comic book collection.

I will try and explain how it did not burn up, yet every other bit of my collections, in the attic, is now either melted plastic or ash. The reason is that the boxes (22 of them) were kept in a closet in the master bedroom, a closet so jammed with "my stuff" that nothing else could fit into it. This closet also contains t-shirts that are 25 years old (I am not making this up). All 22 of these boxes ("short" boxes to comics geeks) hold around 5,000 comics. About 85 percent survived OK; the rest had smoke damage and a light smell.

Operation Chrissie Comics Crusade Rescue was Sunday.

The cleaning service we have coming out this week toured the house last Friday. They advised Chrissie to get the comic book collection out now. We borrowed Ayan's car on Sunday morning and raced to Shelter Island. As a light snow fell, we swooped in and pulled out the heavy boxes and stacked them on the porch. Chrissie also got some clothes out of the bedroom dresser drawers.

After a detour to visit Sonia and Brian in Bridgehampton, we made it home to Harlem. Ayan met us at the curb and we unloaded the boxes. I carefully cracked them open. Some had water damage so bad that the bottom of the boxes fell apart. However, for the most part the plastic sleeves protected them. There was a lot of moisture. For a few hours, Ayan and I opened up box after box. Chrissie pitched in. We got the bulk of them out of the boxes, sleeves, and wetness. When the final tally came in, only around 100 comics were garbage. Unfortunately, these were good ones: Sandman and Preacher (total crap like Topps' Lone Ranger and Duckman survived in NM condition).

The next step is I must purchase 5,000 bags and 5,000 boards and put them all away. But at least one collection didn't get trashed in the fire. I can't say the same for my Star Wars, metal lunchboxes, or HO model trains. But it is a nice feeling to know that at least some comics that I've had for 30+ years are not lost.

Labels: Possessions