De-Cluttering

The desk in my office-library-for-one becomes chock-full throughout the year while I'm not paying attention. Tax paperwork, paraphernalia from students, cards and letters and drawings from nieces and nephews, missives from far-away friends, bank statements, paystubs, and the like. A jumble of the quirky, the mundane, the humorous, the beautiful.

Come summer, I always set aside a chunk of time to set it to rights once again so that it can re-fill during the upcoming year.

That's what I've been doing for a while now: de-cluttering. It takes a long time, since it is a chore punctuated by long bouts of rereading and reminiscing, chuckling, and--new this time--missing Dad.

I found some birthday cards from he and Mom, mostly written in Mom's tidy script but containing a funny little sketch and a few words from Dad at the bottom. I also found a slip of paper I must've written on while I was riding with Dad, just the two of us, in our old van. The past few years I've really wanted to get to know Dad better, to delve into his childhood memories and know where he came from. When I was feeling particularly ambitious, I thought I might write a book about him someday. On this particular drive I must have been feeling ambitious. I had jotted down some notes to remember later; I don't know if Dad knew I was writing anything down. He was telling me about his own dad, my grandpa. Grandpa was raised Methodist and Grandma was a Polish Catholic. Their marriage caused great consternation among their respective relatives. ["Methodists weren't saved--they were liberal; Catholics weren't saved--they were superstitious."]

I had jotted some notes about Grandpa's business, Johnson Petroleum Products, and how Grandpa had brought oil into a coal town (yep, got the town all fired up and ready for a lynching).

I had written some one-word notes that spoke volumes, like "alcohol." Dad only spoke about Grandpa's alcoholism when I asked. Dad grew up helping Grandpa deliver gas and filling the soda machine (I failed to write what soda machine in my note...). He spoke readily of the Golden Days of the 50's when he was a child--of collecting acorns and going to soda shops, of cheap hamburgers and the Lone Ranger--but much lay buried so deep inside him that I don't think even he ventured there very often. For one of his sisters, all the rawness was near the surface. She escaped to get married at 16.

Dad spoke with fondness of his hobbies and odd jobs when he was young.

"Problem is, I used up all my energy back then."

____________________________________________

I also found one other note in that desk of mine. Just some words of Dad's that I must have wanted to hold onto. I'm glad I wrote them down.

Dad had been flipping through an insect field guide when he suddenly piped up, impassioned.

"The predatory stinkbug is a beautiful little animal!"

It's in moments like these that I remember how much I miss him.

Boy, do I miss him.