If you had 15 seconds...

If your house was on fire, or something similar and you had a chance to take with you only:

AS MUCH AS YOU COULD CARRY IN YOUR HANDS / ARMS AT ONCE, NO BAGS OR BOXES ETC, out of the door in 15 seconds, what would it be?
An image of the item / items and a short reasoning is also welcome.
Pets, people, paperwork and technology, etc. would not be included in this.

I remember asking something similar last year but since many of us could have a new favourite item, or are new here, why not do this again.

 

my bullions so I could buy a new house and collectables. I could also come back for it because it would not burn away.

 

Guns and ammo

 

my wife..

 

By this I meant antiques, etc. If everything else important was safe and you could save an item...

 

Pets, people ... etc. would not be included in this.

Bluemoon, people & pets are ALL I would grab! The rest of it is just stuff.

 

Happened to me once. Just moved to NYC after grad school. Hotel fire. Without thinking, grabbed my new Calvin Klein coat and ccs of my resume. Still not sure what that says about me but... says something.

Debora

 

Debora, whatever it says, it says something about who you were THEN - not necessarily who you are NOW!
I'm pretty sure that MY reply would have been far different back in the "old days", when I had just finished grad school!

 

As others have said my hubby and I would grab love ones, each other, because we are close to being antiques! Next would be family pictures of which many are daguerreotypes and ambrotypes, tintypes, etc. All the really old solid photography is in a large bureau drawer that could be easily slid out and rushed out the house in the matter of moments. Now if we had a few more minutes I would be playing Dolly Madison (Pres. James Madison's wife during the War of 1812, who disassembled the famous oil painting of Geo. Washington saving the canvas from the British before they burnt down the White House). I have a large oil of my ggggrandmother, the female progenitor/immigrant of my mainline (surname) ancestry line, late 1700s. I would not take time for such material possessions as silver, jewelry or furniture.

This reminds me of a family story. In September 1938 one afternoon, the exact date escapes me, my mother was down at my paternal grandmother's (Connecticut) helping her prepare for a tea for retired teachers they both knew. My grandmother had taught for decades and my mother had either taught with the women or been taught by them. A terrible storm started and the large 3 story house started shaking. By 2pm all the women had called cancelling the tea. A next door man rushed in saying they needed to take refuge in the cellar and to take their valuables. Well my grandmother's house was full of antique furniture, silver, oil paintings, etc... My mother said my grandmother didn't even think about it. She calmly said **2 pair of shoes.** She had very painful feet that needed specially made shoes. It sometimes took months to get them made & ordered. Outcome of story, they did not take to the basement; the backdoor off the kitchen started bowing in with the screws, hinges, moments from breaking when my mother and 80 yr. old grandmother pushed and shoved a huge old wooden icebox being used as a 2nd refrigerator across a huge kitchen in front of that door stopping it from buckling, blowing in; and this storm turned out to be the deadly 1938 hurricane that killed 100s in New England including a sister-in-law if my grandmother's who was at her summer cottage on the shore of Connecticut. My father was the family member who went down to the CT shore in a hearst several times whenever they got a call that more bodies had washed up to try to recognize his aunt's body. About 3 weeks later he finally spotted her in a massive line of bodies. What a ghastly sight it must have been.

--- Susan

 

My bedroom windows are right next to the front door. I'd smash the glass and pass out all my most valued treasures and then jump out after them!

 

Lady - I am loath to admit it, but I remember the Great Storm of 1938 - some of our tenant farmers were lost as was a lot of my family property - literally land that washed away - on both the North and South shores of L.I.


On to the original question from the OP

Here is a bit I published on my forum in 2013 - and I see no reason to change it......................

A post I just made on another thread reminded me of this...........I recently overheard some people talking about the "What would you grab if the house was on fire" subject. Most mentioned photos or scrapbooks, etc. I thought about it myself and realized that I am "beyond" the photos stage..............most of them just depress me now. I then thought long and hard on what one thing I would "save" that would be a more "complete" memory of my life. I finally decided on a milk jug.......a cheap, ordinary, nothing special milk jug.

When I was still in the nursery, Nanny would bring up this jug (with a mug balanced on top) full of warm milk for my "tea". As I got older and actually had tea, she brought it for my brother, and gave me a dollop of the milk in my tea. It moved with us from one house to the next and even came along on seasonal moves to the country or to the house in Vermont. When my parents divorced, it some how ended up in my mother's possession, and she used it quite a bit on the breakfast table when all of the boys were home. Somehow along the way, it made it's way to my father's house (where I believe it started) and for many years he and his partner used it on the breakfast table or when there were more than a dozen "for coffee". When that house was broken up, I must have taken it ( I don't remember doing so) and it has been laying around ever since. It is broken on the rim and there are more dings in the glaze than not, and I no longer use it for milk (though when some of the guys I tutor bring me flowers, short stemmed and obviously purloined from a neighbors garden I use it as a "quick fix" vase).

It sits on the shelf over the kitchen sink, along with a dozen or so other jugs, pitcher and creamers, and I must "see" it twenty times a day. I don't believe that I have consciously thought about it until now. But in retrospect, it brings back many "good" memories of many, many people..............my grandparents, my parents, my brother, step-brothers, half-brother, my step-father and his family, my father's partner and his (huge!) family, and now, even the guys I work with (successfully or not!).

 

Hi,
I could not choose and probably just burn up with the house and stuff.
greg

 

That thought had occurred to me - in a very serious fashion.

But I suppose that after careful reflection, I am just too damned stubborn to give in and loose a fight without giving it a go......................probably the reason I am living such a purposeless life right now!!!!!

One does wonder after a while........................

 

And as a side note - you may be surprised what you can do in 15 seconds.........since very early childhood I have been fascinated with the "divisions" of things that create a whole - particularly when it comes to money and time. This lead to my family nickname of "Dr. Fünf Cent, Fünf Minuten Philosoph" (eventually shortened to Dr. 5) .............I still lead my live on some of the principles I developed waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when.......................

 

Forget about the fire. That was just a figure of speech. What I meant is what is your favourite antique.

 

I'd grab my purse, since both cats are dead of old age. The other item to grab would be the old family photo albums. I don't care as much about the ones of me, but it would be difficult to impossible to replace those.

 

That question has been posed so many times and every time I choke on it!!!! I love each and every one of our antiques, some of which have been passed along, but they again, are just 'things', so first and foremost....the DH and pets would have to have gotten out safely! But there is an under-hammer long rifle that hangs over the fireplace, that I can remember from MY earliest days and has made every move since childhood....how I wound up with it, I don't recall.....may not have much value, but it's loaded down with memories to me!!!! Maybe silly, but I'd probably grab THAT......I think........

 

alternative facts then...

 

Leaving out the the loved ones, pets, documents, etc, the antique items I would grab would be my stack of antique laces, cottons and silks .. make a carry-all from one of the tablecothes, toss in my old spools of thread, silk ribbons and old buttons, clean my cabinet swiftly of my antique dolls and toss them in, bundle it all quickly and run HELL !! All of these items are close at hand under the cabinet that holds the dolls Joy.

 

This is hilariously wonderful