We all remember what those who have had a close brush with death say: My life flashed before my eyes.
How long could that take? One minute, maybe?
My life is taking a lot longer. Revealing bits and pieces of 70-plus years, not because the end is in sight, but because I’ve chosen to sort through and throw away the detritus. No use now, I think. Better to deal with it myself than to leave it for my children to do when I’ve gone to my just reward. Or maybe just to Montana.
I guess I miscalculated the sheer volume of stuff I’ve stashed away. I’ve been working on it for weeks and have stacks and boxes covering every square foot of dingy carpet. Some of us just collect too much. Even after downsizing several times over the past two decades, there are hundreds of books, many signed by the author to my mother. Last year, I gave to a local museum my collection of old LP records: mostly jazz and movie scores, some orchestrated by my dad, along with biographies of music and movie folks. That was the easy part.
What remained were hundreds of audiotapes, some autographed, almost all of which have been re-mastered and issued on CD. In the same huge library cabinet were hundreds of audiotapes of interviews with really interesting people. Most of the tapes were transcribed to make writing the profile or whatever easier. And guess what I found in file drawers: the transcriptions and some first drafts and newspaper clippings and PR sheets on those very people. And, of course, in a dozen string books are the clips of the final stories as they appeared in print. Some drastically shortened to fill available space. And I hate redundant, retentive obsession.
Just tossing it wouldn’t be so hard if I didn’t feel compelled to read it all first. Well, some of these folks aren’t with us anymore. I’m reading out of respect, I say.
Then there’s a collection of mementos in a glass-front lawyers bookcase. A great place to shove things to be dealt with another time. Well, the time has come.
It’s time to dust off old awards, you know, the wooden plaques with engraved brass plates: Sports Writing, Critical Review, Best Cub Reporter 1986. Good Grief! The Greater Los Angeles Press Club was so kind in 1997 and ’98: Headline Writing and Spot News Coverage. All the other awards for covering disasters hang in this paper’s offices.
Just as well.
I’d made short work of office records, bank statements and cancelled checks from decades past. Why would I ever need those? Banks don’t even give them to you anymore, even if you haven’t gone completely paperless. My shredder overheats every 20 minutes or so and has to rest. So do I.
The filing cabinets hold dozens of folders with clips to be used in columns. Or not. Maybe just to check progress on long running legislation attempts or constantly changing results of health studies. I’m still more confident referring to old news clips than to search the Internet for old data. It seems every mistake I’ve made that wasn’t caught by copy editors came from information gleaned from the Web.
Well, I guess I’m just going to have to get better at Googling, because I’m not carrying all this paper around. Just the other day, I searched for “Key Largo” at IMDB.com to check my memory. Trouble is, the Web site had pages of pictures of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Edward G. Robinson but nary a word about Claire Trevor, who I’m sure played the heavy’s hard drinking girlfriend. My son-in-law told me later I would have done better to search at the American Film Institute site for movies older than 10 years.
IMDB is for Brad, Matt, Leonardo and Angelina. I need more practice.
Anyway, after more shredding, I find the cards. I admit to being sentimental when it comes to Mothers Day cards from my kids and irreverent birthday cards from my sisters, always good for a laugh. But laughter turns to tears reading the condolences from readers on the death of my first granddaughter, Jessica.
That leads to hundreds of pre-digital photos, inappropriately stashed with their negatives in envelopes from the developer. Most are forgettable, the best of the lot having been plucked for publication. But there I find Jessica at three with her dad; at five playing the piano; at seven with a bird on her shoulder or holding a frog at Charmlee Nature Center day camp. Then there she is, a strikingly pretty teen, celebrating Christmas with us just before the car crash that ended her troubled life. Do we ever really get over the loss of a child? I thought perhaps I had. Now I want to save these images. How could I not?
I think I could stand to see my life flash before my eyes, but this is painfully slow. And I guess it will be a while before I can let go of the deep stuff.