This past weekend I spent helping Karen get the house shaped up to either rent or sell as we move from one of the worst states in the Union to one of the best. It was no fun at times and fun at others. Having Sherman and Custer around made it more enjoyable.
Karen's biggest beef is that I have way too much stuff. She thinks I'm a hoarder, which I'm not. The problem has been that I have had to move offices several times and usually that meant bringing home boxes of materials that either I had to sift through or that I needed to keep for my job. The one thing that I will readily cop to is that I have an inordinate amount of books. One time Karen, the former librarian, asked me to keep only those books that were my friends and I innocently and very honestly replied, But they're all my friends which, on some levels, is too sad to acknowledge.
But beyond the mountains of books (I do not exaggerate on that point...) there were boxes with papers that I hadn't looked at in ages. Many of these boxes hadn't been opened in ages since the time that I hurriedly threw papers into them in the hopes that I would be able to go through them to weed them out. I found stuff in these boxes that defied explanation, small Post-Its with phone numbers and names that didn't jog my memory at all. I found business cards of financial people with whom I couldn't remember working on a case at all.
There were briefs and memoranda and seminar materials by the bunches. Some of them were outdated and got tossed. Others were still relevant and were reboxed to follow me to yet another office and out of the basement.
Yet as I leafed through the seemingly endless reams of errant papers, there were some surprises and wistful memories with which I became reacquainted. I saw old sports articles that I'd saved in the hopes of framing them and putting them on a wall in my basement. I found articles of important events, like the headline that announced the hanging of Saddam Hussein, that I kept for memorabilia.
I found articles of events or people that had touched my life. I found the obituary of Henry Lilienheim, the attorney to whom my aunt introduced me when I was still in school, who had not only survived Dachau but who was invited to be in David Ben Gurion's first Israeli cabinet, only to demur because he had to search for his wife in postwar Europe. He found her and then wrote a memoir Aftermath.
There was the article about the man who would have been my high school basketball coach (had I not been screwed over by the sophomore coach) who was approaching 700 career victories. I must have kept the article in shock that he was nearing that milestone because he had a proclivity for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. It was a testament to his persistence and the district's tenure program that he lasted as long as he did. If nothing else, he would be remembered those who came in contact with him because he wore a buzz cut hair style until the end of his career in the 1980's.
The Playboy magazines I'd collected and hardly looked at in ages -- no, I never did read an article -- went into a file drawer. There were articles on how to throw certain pitches with a baseball, others on the size of military units, and others that explained certain historical facts about Ireland. I discarded the redundant or useless ones and kept a few of the others. Someday I may well pitch the rest of them.
There were the funny emails that I got, like the one explaining the differences between men and women, how you knew if you played an FPS too much and how 24 lacked verisimilitude. I got a few chuckles out of them and kept the ones I thought were worth passing on.
Then there were the games that often circulate around offices. One was a page with thirty or so corporate logos that we see everyday but without the names of the companies associated with the logos. The task was to put the name with the logo. I remember getting all but a couple when I first did it; a few I would never have gotten because they weren't national logos but regional logos. Then there was the devastatingly difficult game that asks one to fill out the phrase. For example, 26=L.of the A. is 26 Letters of the Alphabet. Coincidentally, there are twenty-six such mindbenders.
There were also the touching memories. Friends' letters from bygone days, people whose society enriched my life in various ways. Annie, the woman who guided me in Spain, the expat who was left stranded in Europe at a tender age who had made her life there and flourished. Professors, fellow students, coworkers and clients. Thank you notes from people who lives I touched in mostly small but sometimes big ways. I was transported back to those times and smiled.
Not one of those, however, touched me as much as the random pieces of paper I found from our Mother. Notes that she'd jot down, reminders of things to look for, her kindness and generosity there as vibrant as the moment in which she shared it. I noticed how delicate her handwriting was, how much I emulated it and tried to copy it, as I would try to copy her kindness and generosity. Mom was a far better person than I'll ever be. Just seeing those handwritten notes made me miss her all the more.
I'm glad I kept them. They may be meaningless and clutter, but in truth there were only about four sheets and they remind me of a woman who not only gave me life and saved my life on several occasions, they remind me of the woman who made me the man I am today.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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