Well, the hunk didn't show up yesterday to take the stuff to the dump, but I'm not surprised. If I had called him at home, it would have gone on his calendar, but we had discussed this in the front yard, so it didn't get written down. And I purposely didn't call him Monday to remind him because I knew I'd need more time.
But the appointment served its purpose - it got me moving, just in case he did show up.
I didn't get much done Monday because I got stomach cramps and near diarrhea. That happens every time I know I have to go through Jay's stuff. By yesterday I was pretty much over the emotional turmoil, and I got up early and got to it.
I know I'm a packrat. But at least the stuff I save has a possible future use. Jay saved everything.
He had gone to Carnegie Mellon, then after graduate school he was hired by The Company in about 1976ish and went to Yorktown, NY, then transferred to Dallas, TX, in about 1978, then to here in 1982ish. He married his ex-wife just before leaving Texas (Ack! I'm transferred! Let's get married! Big mistake), lived in Saugerties while this house was being built, then moved here.
It looks like on every move, he just gathered up all the paper lying around, including a few month's worth of unopened junk mail, newspapers, etc., threw it all in boxes, and never opened the boxes again. Next move, same procedure, more boxes added to the old unopened boxes.
The Company paid for all the moves, so there was no incentive to sort and pitch.
I've found newsletters from the apartment complex he lived in during grad school. All his college textbooks and class notes. Design notes for every program he ever wrote. A few hundred pounds of old computer punch cards. Computer listings, on the old wide accordion paper, bound in hard covers with plastic rods. Unopened telephone bills. Every box and packing material for every appliance he'd ever bought. Every broken lamp and stained throw rug he'd ever owned. On and on.
I've seen his father's house. Jay came by it honestly. They are both part packrat.
The smart thing to do would be to just throw the boxes out unopened. But I can't. These are pieces of his life that he never had a chance to tell me about. Amid the dross, there are a few gems, and I want to find them.
Two years ago, scattered among several boxes, I had found hundreds of photographs and slides from Carnegie Mellon. Jay was the "official" photographer for his fraternity. I went through them all, then packed them up and sent them and some other college souvenirs to the woman he had been engaged to in grad school. (I kept the fraternity pin, and a few photos.)
May has mentioned that if I come across an old Model 360 Principles of Operation, she wants it. That will be in the stack of boxes against the south wall, that I won't get to for a while yet. I have found "green cards" for TSS and the Model 67, and for a few ancient programming languages. I think she will like them, too.
His ex was a schoolteacher, and she got gazillions of little cutsy-poo gifts from students, and apparently SHE KEPT THEM ALL! And moved boxloads here from Texas. And left them all when she moved out.
In the past, I have sent her some things I found that looked valuable or sentimental, but now I'm setting the nicer stuff aside to go to the "free stuff" barn at the recycle center, and pitching the rest. I have one entire 30-gal garbage bag full of nothing but ugly mugs. (Well, I had the bag full until I tried to lift it. Now it's four bags one quarter full.)
So, I dig, sift, and prospect.
Last night my nose was full of dark yuck, and I had a hot spot in the back of my throat. Old dust and powdered mouse droppings (and some powdered mouse!). I'd forgotten how bad it can get. Today, I will wear a surgical mask.
I'll call the hunk with the truck when I get further along.
~~Silk
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