Papers and Stuff

Someplace in my attic....

~My scrapbooks from early childhood...photos of Elvis cut out of magazines..Hershey Bar wrapper from when my girlfriend, Barbara, and I won the spotlight dance at a 6th grade shindig....a lock of my grandmother’s hair at age 64...still light brown...a straw from my hospital stay after having my appendix removed...

~Collectable cards....Davy Crocket cards...Elvis cards....Beatles cards...baseball cards...

~ My bachelor’s and master’s degree diplomas...something you just don’t frame and hang after earning a doctorate...but both full of memories and pride...

~ Letters and greeting cards...birthdays and Christmas....girlfriends....even letters that Barbara and I exchanged after she moved to Maine (from D.C.) during our early

teens....

~I have this quiz from my undergraduate statistics class....we had one every day and on this one, I got a 6....that’s 6 out of 100....oh, I got an A in the class, but from that point on, my friend Randy called me “scholar”...just couldn’t believe it possible to get a 6 out of 100...I’ve wanted to frame it next to my doctoral diploma...it’s up there someplace...

~ My dinosaurs...little hard rubber things...I played with them endlessly...and when I reunited with Barbara several years ago, I gave her a tyrannosaurus...her favorite... that we used to play with together...

~Files and files...client records...tax returns...it’s the law, but I mean really!.....

~Cassette tapes, VHS tapes, video cassette recorder...you get the picture...

~Pool cues and pool balls...had this gorgeous pool table in Massachusetts...just wouldn’t fit in the Maine house...sigh...

~Boxes...hmm, maybe I’ll have to return this appliance some day and I’ll need the original box....can’t be too careful....

~Interesting, er....antique items...bought at auction...love those auctions with the smells of mold, dust, and coffee...”wow...this will be interesting to put...um..I’ll put

it....someplace...”

~ Camping gear...haven’t camped in over 10 years...dogs love camping...it could happen again...right?

~ A state of the art Teac reel-to-reel tape recorder...yep...it would play for hours...but then again, my ipod will play for days...

In my spare bedroom...

~ Photo albums....remember those? Childhood....grad school...old girlfriends....photos

of gorgeous children I knew and loved during my pre-school teacher years...they’re all

in their early 40’s now....oh man...dogs...tons of dog photos...someplace there is a photo my friend Mike and me standing next to jazz clarinetist Pete Fountain...at the

D.C. armory...I’m wearing some stupid plastic lei around my neck...how’d that

happen?

~ A Canon 35 mm SLR...huge, heavy 70-200 zoom lens...it takes film...remember film?

~ Guitars....and cases....each guitar carries more memories than I could possibly

count...or even remember!

~ A painting given to me by an elderly woman I’d worked with years ago...she later

passed away and I worked with her husband through his grief and adjustment...when told about her painting, he said, “well...she rarely gave those away, so if she gave you one, she must have really wanted you to have it.”

And so, I could ramble on about how much these things mean to me...and they do. I could examine my “hoarder” side, but I don’t think I qualify for the television show...it’s all too organized and accumulated over too many years...I could put it on Craig’s List, but who wants my grandmother’s hair?

Instead, I’m mostly wondering about what to do with it all? I have no children...who would keep and treasure my things or simply say, “now what do we do with all this shit?” I could say, “when I’m famous, people will sell these things on ebay.” Ummm...that’s not going to happen either.

And concluding, I think, that it’s time to purge. Time to rid myself of...me. It’s all just stuff now....my stuff, but still just stuff. I can’t take it with me...and wouldn’t want to. Oh, there are my dogs’ ashes and they’re going with me. All in one place. (If you can, find the Twilight Zone episode, “The Hunter”) But everything else has no purpose anymore. What else do you do with things kept for “later” when there might not be a “later”? Huh?

Going once...going twice...going.