Often, when confronted with an unpleasant housekeeping chore during the year, my wife and I will agree that it would be best to save it for those l-o-o-o-ng days and nights in January and February when time is much more pliable. That's primarily because no thought can be given to working outside since the temps are too low, the ground is often frozen, and virtually everything is in a deep sleep until spring. I welcome this seasonal respite.
Whenever we put off these onerous tasks, our eyes exchange knowing glimmers because the jobs are unlikely to get attended to soon. They'll most probably get hijacked by much more pleasurable pursuits like cocooning as we binge-watch BBC detective series on Netflix or pursue our hobbies — quilt-making for her and writing and local history for me.
However, a few weeks ago, Dori actually made good on one of the more arduous tasks we faced — sorting through piles of boxes and plastic storage tubs in the basement that are jammed with 50 years of artifacts, the detritus of lives lived. Most of the stuff is ours, but some belonged to our respective parents, and we passively took title to it upon their passing.
My wife's rationale for attacking this task was two-fold: the basement needed cleaning and now's as good a time as any and, more practically, let's not do to our three children what our parents did to us — leave behind houses filled chock-a-block with "stuff," some of it unique and heritage-related, and some of it, like my dad's post card collection glued in albums, best suited for the memory hole.
Dori worked solo for about a week, and found a trove of old photo albums, both ours and our parents. The ones from the 1960s and 70s had cracked bindings, and the photos were often stuck to the plastic and thus difficult to remove. She devised a triage-like approach. She saved portraits of family members and memorable activities, but discarded most of the dime-a-dozen vacation landscapes, any poorly framed shots, duplicates we took for back-ups sake before the digital era and instant review, and photos of people we no longer recognized or who had migrated out of our lives.
She then used four boxes — one for us and one for each of the kids — and apportioned the photos according to the subject featured. Of course, she soon discovered that the oldest child had the most pictures taken of him, and the youngest, the fewest. That's just how it works out in families. Additional kids coming on the scene translate to less time to take photos, or perhaps the novelty of capturing the baby's first pizza has simply worn off.
We also discovered that we had the fewest number of photos of our youngest grandchildren. That's because they had the distinction of being born after the advent of the digital image age. Parents and grandparents may be taking just as many photos today as previously, but these are held captive on un-downloaded camera cards, on smart phones, and on flash and hard drives, and usually kept in a quite disorganized and uncategorized way. I wonder what this bodes for the future of family histories?
Once our kids get their boxes, they can collectively scan the photos for Facebook duty, or dismiss them to a dark spot in their own attics or basements. At least they will be out of my hair, or what's left of it.
Dori then insisted that I go through boxes of my "stuff." I found an old scrapbook featuring Davy Crockett articles and trading cards; high school artifacts (I helped draft the senior class's Last Will and Testament. Do kids still do this?); copies of the high school newspaper when I served as editor; senior play photos; a picture of Annette Funicello (I know.); my Boy Scout handbook; and miscellaneous U.S. Army items, including my Vietnamese phrase book that I thankfully never had to use.
This experience was slow and thoughtful, as I deep-dived into the past and handled things I hadn't held in years. Much of it was precious to me at one time, but of little interest to my kids or museums in days to come, so it went into the trash or recycling.
I have another birthday this month, and will now continue my life's voyage unencumbered by some unnecessary baggage, but certainly enriched by the many old memories that were re-kindled and still linger.
Frank Batavick writes from Westminster. His column appears Fridays. Email him at fjbatavick@gmail.com.
