September 01, 2001 - 22:19 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Routine Rooting

As like in money, we spent the day. In return we obtained a medical procedure for Heather, a pleasant meal together in a restaurant we like, and a visit with Heather's brother. The loose change of the day had and has me at the keyboard in contemplation.

Makes me titter a bit, remembering when as a little kid I had a few short aware years before the misery of hay fever took over. Sneezing, wheezing with red, itchy eyes. And then right after that came my all winter cold. Is this one of Rob's Karmic Boomerangs ? Today in the process of learning to live with a trailing tank and hose to ensnare my feet, and that going well finally, allergy struck again and I have fun pulling the cannula and wiping a drippy nose. I must have committed a grave offense for the, "Boomer," to whap me in the snoot.

I do feel better (no miracle) and more lively. It seems to have revved up the sponge in my skull, wrung it out hoping to absorb some new thing, cackle, giggle or a bit of zest.

Some of our vast array of useless junk sorted, boxed and ready to go to storage. Why we keep this stuff is a mystery to me. I say we because some of it is mine. Stuff that for some crazy reason my grubby mind says, "Mine, mine, save it, store it." and so it gets squirreled away to a hide away in a safe nook until we go back and sort it once again later and dispose of some of the things which have a forgotten reason to exist.

We have a large business here called Public Storage, in other towns I have seen similar things. All are composed of a vast number of cinder block holes covered from rain and a door that locks - a gate, password operated each cubby seeming to hold things that are treasures to the renter of that space. My mind refuses to contemplate how big a city of detritus this would be if all storage units in the Metro Area were bunched together.

Looks to me like modern folks have as much or maybe even more floor space in one place or another for unused possesions than they have floor space to live in.

Are we that greedy ? I guess we are as a nation, or maybe misers of clutter.

I guess garage sales enable people to clear out enough stuff to clear space for the new things coming in. Selling the over-stuff to avoid paying storage.

Heather and I are lucky. There was a high chair that held four of our kids as babies and some of our relatives babies as well. It was like the, "One Hoss Shay," it seemed to fade away. Our progeny started a new line of high chairs. Furniture and home wares of one kind or another that came to us from elder family became objects for us to use or to pass on to one of the kids with the string on it that it was to be passed on to one of the family who could use it. Every once in a while I will note something that Heather and I have passed on has found a new family place to live.

And yet, and yet the stuff piles up around us. This time I almost wore out a paper shredder, disposing of papers that had accumulated from the time we were first married. Some stuff went to the Goodwill, other stuff passed on to relatives.

There is now a bit of room in the locker for, "new" old stuff.

The mazes of the minds of people are devious and intricate having various quirky dead ends as it were. We seem to reach a time when we ask ourselves, "Just why the heck are we storing, "this," and it seems to be sent away in exile. But in the past it had been considered too precious to give away or throw away. It all beats me why my mind works that way.

I did pull a sneaky trick on the fates though. In 1978 mementos, small jewelry and watches, a few ceramics and things too many to mention I began passing out to our kids. Dad had enough old watches, tie bars, tie tacks, cuff links and stuff like that even the male in laws each got one. Some of my Mom's pretties were given to the women of the family as well. I remember a beautiful small wood carving of a mare and foal that had been one of Mom's things of beauty was passed on to our youngest daughter, the one who seemed to be the one child above the others who sought to know her grand ancestors from their writings and possessions. A lot of the stuff I really cared about went to one of our kids or another while I had a choice at their disposal. Family furniture of our folks has been put to use, some by Heather and I and the other stuff has gone on to family to use.

And still we have a damn locker full.

Sometimes when I ponder and muse it seems as if my status assumes the place where it actually is. Knocks self pity out the window. What ever adverse thing we experience we usually don't have to turn our heads to see someone worse off than us, and they cheerfully cope with what life has given them.

I diverge from the straight line tonight and do a bit of Routine Rooting . . . . . .

Blog