Thirty Years

COWETA TO ME

Written by SUSIE BERTA

Susie Berta and her husband, Rick, a veterinarian, have lived in Newnan since 1977. They raised two boys here and have two grandchildren. Susie is a retired vocalist/performer who sang with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus for many years.

I just had a funeral for a close associate I’ve known for more than three decades: my Jenn-Aire cooktop.

That cooktop was pristine and beautiful when it came to our new house 32 years ago. We had just purchased our “forever” home in 1989. Because the house had been on the market for a while – and I had aesthetic vision beyond the awful gold shag carpets, heavy gold drapes and teeny tiny linoleum-floored kitchen – we got it for a song. That made it possible for us to add on to the back half of the house, creating a roomy kitchen, laundry room and main floor bedroom. My knack for seeing the value of the good bones of a house, the proceeds from the sale of our starter house on Dixon Street, and money from our share of the sale of Rick’s mom’s house in Atlanta the year before made it all possible. I think of her every time I step foot in my kitchen. 

How many appliances last for more than 30 years? Very few. But this one did. It was a stalwart. And like Rome, all roads in our house lead to the center, the kitchen and the cooktop that sits in the center of the kitchen island, the center of activity. It saw us through decades of family meals, parties, holidays; 31 years of boiling tea kettles, baby bottles, and small pots of hard-boiled eggs; big pots of homemade soup and chili; large stock pots of boiling water with just a touch of sugar for our summers of Silver Queen corn; and heart-shaped Sunday pancakes on the griddle for our children and then our children’s children.

Around that island where our cooktop sits are the memories of friends and loved ones gathered around it, talking, laughing, crying, fighting, apologizing, confessing, celebrating, busily cooking, drinking and toasting, eating, even singing together, and holding hands to say grace encircling the island and that cooktop. If an inanimate object can capture the place of a home, this one did. 

But nothing lasts forever, and our cooktop didn’t either. It was dead, and it was time for it to go.

After its unceremonious removal by the expert technicians, I bowed my head and said farewell to a dear friend as it went out the door, into the back of their truck, and onto the pile of other discarded appliances from the day’s work orders. And when they came back through the door, I welcomed the installation of a brand new cooktop in its place.

It was a thing to behold. Different, new and beautiful. Modern and once again, pristine. I wondered if this new one would last another 30 years, and what it – and the world – would look like if it did. I knew in that moment that I would never know the answer to that question.

Sobering thought: I turned 71 this year. Alas, I am too damn old to survive it. But I also know that the old cooktop was beneficent in its retreat. When it gave up the ghost, it did not take with it all the spirits and the memories. It kindly left them all in the room, in the air, in the hearts, in the minds, and in the very fiber of all who were here in our kitchen, around our island. 

So what will the next 30 years bring, and how much of it will I get to see? The past 32 have certainly been eventful. By the end of 1989, when I was 39 and my husband 40, the Berlin Wall came down, there was a massacre in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the World Wide Web was invented and we bought our forever house. Our boys were little.

Last year, in 2020, a wall at our southern border was partially up, there were protests in Hong Kong for their lives to matter, we started experiencing a global pandemic, and more than one million people died worldwide. For the first time in my life, we experienced lockdowns, quarantines, isolation and a general disruption of normality; politically, things got really messy and polarized; wearing protective face masks became political; people protested in the streets of the U.S. for black lives to matter; it seemed everybody was angry, and a wild presidential election in November was the most impactful in my memory.

Now 2021 is here, and we live in the same forever house, with landscaping and a garden we have tended over the years, a few new furnishings, some new playground equipment, a playhouse for our grandchildren, which they are quickly outgrowing, and a new cooktop. The house is minus two children who grew up here but still visit, one often, the other only periodically. One of our boys is approaching his mid-40s and the other is in his late 30s. The one who often visits lives in Newnan. The other lives in Hong Kong. We have grandchildren, and my husband and I will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary in June. We are retired. We are happy. We are in our very early 70s (emphasis on “very early” for my sake). We worry for our world and wonder about a future 30 years from now that we won’t live to see. 

What will the world look like in 2051? It is my fervent hope it will be good – for everyone’s sake. Everyone’s.

But I wonder if that’s even possible. Will we all find common ground after all our schisms, enough to heal the separation and wounds we all suffer today? Have we ever?

The human condition is comprised of every second of a man’s life, from birth to standing around a kitchen island to leaving the building forever. Or, from birth to a homeless shelter or a premature visit to the morgue. Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl says, “The meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour.”

Historically, all mankind has never been on the same page, and I don’t know that another 30 years will change that. But what is a goal except something to strive for? Even our goals are different. But I wish, I pray, I hope with all my heart that mankind can find a common decency that is kind, accepting, inclusive and unselfish. Is that too much to ask? 

If you will, in 30 years, come to our house, knock on the door, tell them we sent you. I’ll leave a memo on the island telling them to expect you. Please gather ’round the cooktop and hold hands, sing together and say grace for mankind. That would make me so very happy. 

And I’ll know, because I’ll be in the air, in the room where it happens. NCM

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