Lost Things

Karen thinks I'm a hoarder.  She's wrong, but there's no dissuading her from the position.  I have a lot of books, but I read all of them and continue to use many of them after I'm done reading them.  I even get rid of badly written books -- hello Walter Cronkite -- despite what she thinks.  I've also donated plenty of clothing, although Karen says I still own more clothes than any other (straight, not metrosexual) man she knows.  There's a reason for that that has nothing to do with hoarding and everything to do with the clothing industry not providing sufficient stocks and styles to less-than-perfect men.  But I digress.

I've never had much of an acquisitive streak.  I don't want fancy cars, fancy clothes, an airplane, a helicopter or expensive jewelry.  Sure, I like books, but I don't even look for first editions or signed copies.  So to call me a materialist is a bit of a stretch, especially when one considers all the different types of collections that are out there.  I tried, as a kid, to collect coins but lost interest. Stamps never interested me.  I had a beer can collection as a teenager, but space concerns and maturity conspired to rid me of that passing fancy.

So I'm not a collector of much, besides books.  Karen will argue that I place sentimental attachment on too many things, and she's partially right.  There's a reason for that that doesn't require exposure here.  Besides, I would never pay a therapist to delve into it, so why should I waste time on that here?

Still, there are some things that I possess for sentimental reasons.  One of my most cherished possessions is an aluminum hórreo, or Galician chicken coop, that one of my Spanish students gave me when I left Spain. José was a vice president at ENDASA, a Spanish subsidiary of Alcoa, and I'd been his English instructor for nearly a year.  Here's a picture of it:

It measures 2"x 2.5", so it doesn't take up a great deal of space.

There are a few other things that I have that have meaning to me, like a collection of all the tickets to sporting events that I intend to frame someday, or the Chicago Is Different article out of the ABC newspaper in Spain that appeared a month and a half after I arrived in 1984 that I'd also like to frame.  Not one of them is big, so keeping them isn't much of an issue.

But there are a few things that I've lost that cause me some grief.  Among them:

Posters from Spain:  During my travels in Spain the year I lived there, I collected posters.  When I left for Barajas Airport, I inadvertently left the tube in which I had them rolled up in the elevator of my apartment building.  Perhaps my old roommate got them.  If so, I hope that offsets the huge phone intercontinental phone bill I ran up because he'd been a jerk. Still, I wish I still had them.

St. Patrick's statue:  Our grandmother had given me this little wooden St.Patrick's statue whose arm holding the shepard's staff rotated.  He had this goofy look on his face, and in and of itself it wasn't that important to me.   I brought it with me to Ireland because Grandma had never been to the ancestral homeland, and this was a little piece of her that I brought along instead.  I left it in the door pocket of the rental car at Shannon airport (I notice a theme with lost items and airports developing...).  I comfort myself knowing that something of Grandma's made it to Ireland and stayed.

El juego del ángel, by Carlos Ruíz Zafón:  The second installment in the La sombra del viento triology, it was damaged in a freak rainstorm in our old house in Illinois.  Karen was just happy to see one more book go.  I'd like to retain the integrity of the series.  Besides, hardbound Spanish books aren't as easy to get here.

The Voyage of the Catalpa:  I lent this to a friend of my estranged brother.  That was a mistake.  I haven't seen it since.  It's only the best true life jail break story ever.

My two catalpa trees:  I didn't lose these so much as I had to leave them behind at a house in Illinois, they represent the only two plants I didn't kill with my black thumb.   I even saved one of them after a windstorm damaged it.

Skeleton key:  Another of Grandma's gifts, I still don't know what happened to it.  It probably didn't unlock anything anyway.

Trophy and baseball cap:  I lost these in a move a couple of years ago.  The trophy was merely one of those participation rewards, but it was for the team that won the Diocesan tournament in eighth grade.  The other is the All Star cap I wore in Little League.  No matter.  I know what I did.

 I can't really think of too much else.  Karen would contend that's because I still have everything else.  I disagree, but that argument won't end until one of us dies.  These are things that I would have liked to keep just because.  There's no rhyme or reason to my attachment to them.  And Karen's right, in part, that I probably keep more than other people would.

It could be worse.  I could collect cars.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles