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PROGRAMMING NOTE from the Author and Archivist


So obviously I just stopped blogging on this platform. I'll get back to it eventually. Or not. I'm taking a break from all social media. It seemed necessary for my mental health.

The last few years have been busy and … challenging:

- 2015 Happened.
- 2016 Let's call it The Lost Year. (Obviously words failed me.)
- 2017 about broke me. Literally. Mentally.
- 2018 was ridiculous, proving 2017 was just a warm up. (Good thing I was already broken so it couldn't hurt as much.#2018TrashCanFire I thought things were going okay, but maybe not?)

- 2019 was such a blur. I know there were highlights, but then stuff happened and carried into the next year...

- And then in March#2020 really took a turn. Who can even categorize 2020? Do we dare?


I kinda want a do-over of some of the last few years. But life doesn’t work that way.


So for now, I'm hunkering down. Regrouping. Trying to stay safe and sort some stuff out.


Stay safe everyone. Stay well.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Thanksgiving Throw-out on Memory Lane

Part of my Thanksgiving jaunt included the "forced" purging of many boxes of belongings from my parents’ attic. My folks are slowly winnowing down the mass accumulation of five people who spent almost 30 years in a post-Victorian American four-square. Our “stuff” is crammed into every nook and cranny of that house. Now that my parents are retired empty-nesters, they are thinking ahead to when they down-size and relocate to warmer climes nearer their grandchildren. While a good deal of my furniture and quite a few trunks remain in the basement and the garage, I am making pace with the five-year cleaning plan that is underway. Somehow my brothers are spared this process. I think it is because they are thousands of miles away, and don’t seem to care as much about their “stuff.”

On previous visits I have spent hours shredding paystubs from college, shaking my head over the paltry wages that were my work-study financial aid. Copious binders of college notes, handouts, and papers also went in the shredder. College textbooks were donated to the library. Childhood toys were passed on to needy kids. My maid of horror … er… honor bridesmaids dresses went off to Goodwill to amuse future bargain hunters. (Sorry gals, I never did manage to wear those taffeta creations again, no matter how hard you tried to be nice.) I thought I had made good progress, so I was befuddled as to what the heck was in eight to ten boxes Mom had earmarked for me to go through this time.

Under the light of one dim bulb and in the shivering cold of an un-insulated attic, I quickly managed to edit down more of my past. This time I discarded the remainder of my college papers and notes. I found a file with paystubs from my first “real” job, where I learned that if "you have time to lean, you have time to clean." I winnowed three crates of piano/choral music down to one. More books were earmarked for donation, along with various ceramic figurines and stuffed animals. I was ruthless.
Peter Walsh would have been so proud of me.

I didn’t really slow down, however, until I found two small battered cardboard boxes. These were the real “memory boxes,” ones that had been hidden away in the dark recesses of the attic. Creased into the masking tape and peppered throughout the papers were cinders from two chimney fires that have threatened the house over the years. I had discovered a treasure trove from my high school years. In addition to my SAT paperwork, Soviet-era rubles and Communist-paraphernalia from my trip to the U.S.S.R., I found my high school diploma and various letter pins--like the one for the
National Honor Society. (How did I forget that I belonged to the National Honor Society?) I also found those Broadway Playbills from the trip to Les Miz and Phantom, along with the choral arrangements, mentioned here. Seriously. Look!

(I wonder how much I can get for them on eBay?)

Some of the scariest finds in that archaeological dig were the junior high school yearbooks and all of the photos of the 1980s hair. Those incriminating documents will be locked away and only shown to those implicated on those pages with me, and you know who you are. What really amused me were those inscriptions that my classmates wrote in those yearbooks. You know those inscriptions; the “Have a great Summer!” or “You’re a great friend” notes? The ones to me went more like:
  • “Stay the same over the summer (strange!)”;
  • “{Auntie Nettie} You are a very strange! But nice friend.”;
  • “Hi {Auntie Nettie} You’re a little weird. Only kidding.” [I don't think she was!];
  • and “I will miss your stupid ‘smart’ remarks.”
Apparently, even in junior high school I was known for my odd sense of humor. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I brought those boxes and a few more home with me to New York. I’ll be going through them bit by bit, and suspect that they’ll be a source for many a blog entry in the upcoming months.

Stay tuned for more trips down memory lane.

1 comment:

Kristin.... said...

He he. I love the yearbook comments. Boy they figured you out early on!