1. It was a roaring day in our house today. Paul and Carol and Christy came over and before too long Paul drove off in Everett's truck with the double bed from upstairs and the dresser from the downstairs back bedroom and other smaller items from around the house. Later, Carol and Paul hauled Mom's rolltop desk over to Christy's. I was going to go to the dump, but since Paul was going and had the truck, he took our stuff with his. I, on the other, hand swung by Carol and Paul's and added things to donate to St. Vincent de Paul's to ours in the Sube and made a quick trip to Osburn to the donation center.
2. Growing up in this house, maybe the two words I dreaded the most were "storage closet". This house was constructed with deep narrow storage areas, crawl spaces, just under the roof on the north and south sides of the house. Mom packed both of them with tubs of Christmas ornaments and lights and garlands, boxes of stuffed animals, a vintage wedding dress, old board games -- like Pass Out and Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, a box of newspapers featuring world events like the Kennedy assassination, the Gulf War, the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the bombing of Baghdad and other events, old luggage, purses, and hats, and more.
I vowed today to move all the tubs and boxes and other items out of the storage closets. Luckily, it's cool outside. In the summer, the storage closets were thick with heat, seeming to be twenty degrees hotter than outside. But, I was on my knees a lot, crawling to reach into the far ends of these closets to pull out boxes of pictures, a stack of books, boxes of used and unused greeting cards, the back brace Mom hated, and other things.
I succeeded. With the double bed and two rocking chairs out of the upstairs bedroom, I had plenty of room where I could put the storage closet things so Christy and Carol could sort through them, take what they want, decide what to donate to the Baptist Church's Christmas decorations sale, and decide what goes to St. Vincent de Paul's.
And, to my great pleasure, filling me with gratitude, Christy and Carol both came over in the early afternoon, completed their tasks, and now I know what to do with the things that were in the storage closets.
Yes, physically, we cleared out a lot of things today.
I also felt psychologically cleansed and relieved.
It's remarkable how much these things pile up in a house and weigh on my mind.
3. The Deke and I started our party soon after 4:00 up at the Inland Lounge where the Deke got to meet Eddie Joe, Bucky, Bucky's wife, Debbie, Bird Legs, and his wife Gloria. We drank a little Maker's Mark in honor of Debbie's deceased (2009) brother David's would have been 59th birthday which fell on the 19th of October. We also got in some solid yakkin' and jokin' around with Cas. The joint was rockin' and it was a blast to be in on the party.
Then we walked up to Radio Brewing and split an order of fish and chips. Stephen and Cedris came up to the bar where we were seated and encouraged us to think about subbing in the local schools. The Deke has definitely thought about doing this and I gave it serious thought for the first time listening to Stephen and Cedris. I had vowed, when I left LCC, to be done with teaching, but who knows? Maybe I'll give subbing a whirl. I'm unsure.
Christy had texted us, inviting us to Best Shots. We accepted and walked back to the car down on McKinley Ave. and glided over to Best Shots. Soon we were joined by Ed, who not only wanted to see us, but also brought me and the Deke a plastic bag of potatoes, each spud the size of the 1969 VW Bug I bought from Bob Svingen Motors back in 1972. They are beautiful potatoes and will be fun to cook.
Wow! What a day! What an evening! Family, friends, food, memorializing David, more family! Moving, donating, sorting, partying: having a ton of fun in our new hometown of Kellogg, Idaho.
We are loving it here.
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