You deleted yesterday's post after Carol
told you to leave 'buying a house' out. Perhaps later in the year or early next.
In any case, you are focused on cleaning the basement because Kim, Paul and the
boys are down this weekend to help clean up the house as you will be having it
painted in a month or so -- most of the interior plus the garage. The master
and hall bathrooms were painted earlier as was the master bedroom.
1500 hours. If we sell, it
will be in the Spring. Until then we have work to do getting the house and
grounds up to par for showing. I have spent several hours in the basement going
through old drafts, notes, etc. and through out at least four reams worth of
papers for recycle on Monday morning.
You found several old
newspaper clippings that brought back memories of living in earlier times of
your life and the lives of your parents and grandparents. You were surprised on
an article on your father-in-law working for the military and the CIA when he
was with USAID in Vietnam. - Amorella
1505 hours. I was surprised because although I knew this from personal
conversations with Dad H. I did not expect to see it mentioned in an Ohio city
newspaper. Dad was almost killed by a hand grenade while giving a speech at a
university and he missed a flight to another part of Vietnam because of
scheduling and that flight crashed in the mountains. Originally he was listed
as killed because he was on the flight manifest. This was while Carol was a
Freshman at Otterbein. Mostly his focus was higher education for the
instruction for curriculum and personnel development for elementary and
secondary school teachers in Vietnam at the time. I did find a full page
article on my own father too, but it was for the best ways to hunt for killing
deer and wild turkey with bow and arrow in the greater Ohio region.
How about your own writings? - Amorella
1518
hours. Lots of old drafts were tossed, all notes were repositioned to new
sturdier folders and placed in one box for storage. This had been three to four
file cabinet’s worth of material deleted down to about half a file's worth. It doesn't sound like much but it takes time when
you are reading, at least, skimming everything. I almost threw out three years
of poetry (1984, '85 and '86). That was the height of my poetic flowering from
my perspective anyway. I also found old rejection letters for novels and
poetry. All those went out. Why did I ever keep those letters anyway? My mind
was a packrat, finally I am letting go.
One article about you said that in your
youth you had twenty-six invisible friends, one for each letter of the
alphabet, was that true? - Amorella
1528 hours. I was as surprised to see that as you were Amorella. I think
I told the school reporter that I had some invisible childhood friends named
for letters in the alphabet and she decided, I guess, to create one for each
letter. I don't remember ever noticing that before. This was some time ago, in
the 1990's.
You created a poem and framed it -- a tribute
to your cocker spaniel named "Lady" 1990 to 1999. - Amorella
1532 hours. Carol found it in another pile, the tribute had been wrapped
for safe-keeping and also had two photos of Lady. I'll give it to Kim this
weekend if she wants it. I also found a book I wrote and dedicated to Kim when
I think she was in seventh or eighth grade. I had forgotten all about it. I'll
give her that too -- about 250 pages if I remember right.
This has been a sample of how it will
probably be several days a month until Spring. Cleaning house. - Amorella
1537 hours. I feel responsible for picking up my own mess before
departing this planet. I do want to move so in our older aging we do not leave
a mess for daughter and son-in-law to clean up after.
