As a benefit of being retired, I was able to spend most of last week with my dad who will turn 90 this summer. He lives alone on 5 acres outside of town. He has decided that he has too much stuff and it’s time to start clearing away the things he doesn’t really need. He worries that eventually we three kids will have to do this with everything that is left. So for two days we went through pictures and scrapbooks and boxes of old newspaper clippings to see what he wanted to keep. We threw out close to 200 pictures along with lots of other things - 3 large garbage bags full. The pictures weren't really worth saving. They were mainly shots of scenery taken during vacation trips he and my mom (who passed away in 1993) took after we kids were grown and gone. Dad said if there were no people in the picture, lets toss it. So we did. I saved several things that had meaning to me and sent a large envelope to Oregon for my brother to look through. We left a box of things for my sister in Arkansas to go through when she visits at Memorial Day.
This afternoon I went to a funeral visitation for the wife of someone I taught math with for 22 years. I was in line with two other retired teachers from the school and when we got to the front, we spent the next seven or eight minutes with the husband of the deceased telling stories about people we had taught with. We gave our condolences then and moved out of the parlor.
That experience made me think back to how quickly my dad and I went through the old photos. If the three kids are together (with the spouses and grandkids) there will probably be more of the storytelling going on as we go through the pictures. I think Dad just wants to get it done. But this is fair warning to my siblings. You better not be in a hurry when it comes down to cleaning out the house. There are a lot of stories I want to hear again. I’m just saying.
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