“Hold it! Don’t Move ”

By

Gerry Niskern

Have you moved lately? Don’t! Even thinking about changing houses leads to work. I’m talking a lot of mental work here.

It’s not the packing and heavy lifting that’s hard. No, it’s the decisions; many, many decisions. If you have an old “hope chest”, or the equivalent, you know what I mean. Back in the dark ages, when I was engaged to be married, young brides-to-be stored table and bed linens for their future homes in a beautifully finished large wooden chest. Mine was a light Ash modern design and I dutifully filled it with hand embroidered items.

As years went by the linens were used and replaced with keepsakes. You name it, I saved it. My old school projects and awards were stashed there. Then each new babies’ little beaded I.D. bracelet from the new born nursery at Good Sam. A washed out nightgown that was worn by all three, plus a handed down little necklace of rubber teething beads. Then their first Christmas outfits, tiny shoes, and favorite stuffed animals went in. Then came the report cards and achievement awards and hand made cards; oh my, the cards! Especially Mother’s day cards. My all time favorite one had unique hand made flowers pasted all over and read “Dear Mother, I only have $3. 65 so I can’t buy you anything, so I made you this card”.

I was getting rid of the chest, so everything had to be divided into three stacks.

There were three little silver cups. Each had a name engraved on it. They all learned to drink from them at around eight months and then straight to a sturdy glass Surprising, there were few spills. Those won’t be passed down to grandchildren. It’s Tippee cups now; the kind that are sipped from, then tossed on the floor till they are old enough for Kindergarten.                                                                                                                                      Right in the middle of sorting I found a bundle of a dozen full note book pages that read “I will note touch other peoples $”, over and over, front and back. I don’t know when I meted out that punishment, but it apparently worked.

So that sorting is done. Everyone has their bundle and I enjoyed the trip down memory lane. However, as I said before, don’t move!