OF THINGS AND MEMORIES

After forty years of marriage, my wife and I are living in our ninth home and in our fourth city.

Our first dwellings were small but gradually grew along with a growing family and income. As children flew the coop in response to the call of the sixties, the size of our homes grew proportionally smaller. Today we are back to square one; a one-bedroom affair equal in size to our very first home.

Possessions grew as we climbed the housing ladder, and conversely decreased as we homed down. However, there are some things I won’t give up---things that might one day be of use again, things that evoke memories.

In the bottom drawer of my dresser, neatly tucked away, are a dozen undershirts ranging in sizes from 28 to 32. Today I manage to comfortably get into a size 46, particularly if I suck in my stomach and keep it in. Tomorrow, next week, or next month, I might very well start a slimming process that will allow my body to reclaim past glories and sizes. Those shorts are more than memories---they’re incentives.


One does not need an attic to inspire one to collect and store all sorts of things. In a real rummaging mood now, a sort of walk down memory lane, I unearthed three wristwatches that looked perfectly good. However no amount of prodding or winding would bring them back to life again. Atrophy had set in, the direct result of lack of exercise.

I looked longingly at some sharp wrinkle-free belts, curled up like hibernating snakes. All had eventually fallen short of their mark. I was the mark. My waist had spread like oleo. What a waste was my waist.

An old jewel case displayed 51 pairs of cufflinks. I had been a slave to fashion even though my wrists fought for air while torturously imprisoned in those barbaric vises.

Neglected ties hung disconsolately on an old tie rack. There were slim ties, and wide ties, and in-between ties. Silk ones touched shoulders with wool, cotton, and nylon varieties. Over the years I had religiously gone from wide to narrow, to medium, to wide and then back again. I go tieless now---haven’t worn the buggers for years. My open shirt loves me.

Another drawer exposed a half-dozen soft leather eyeglass cases encasing nothing but memories of glasses worn and discarded for one reason or another. The piece de resistance was two hard eyeglass cases. I pried them open and discovered wire framed ‘spectacles’ surrounding lenses just big enough to cover my eyes some forty years ago. Museum pieces I had actually worn unselfconsciously. The cases shut with a snapping sound, bidding goodbye to a less complicated drug-free era.

The facial tissue manufacturers did a good job of knocking the handkerchief industry out of contention. I could not bear to dispense with them. They were just too noseworthy. I keep them in a plastic bag to maintain their whiteness and freshness. I know it’s more hygienic to use a tissue but my nose longs for the soft, chemical-free feel of fresh cotton. Perhaps I’ll buck the trend and give my old nose a treat from time to time.

In the old days, not too long before my time, a woman dropped her handkerchief accidentally on purpose, just as an attractive suitor came into view. Romance would blossom and maybe bloom. Can you picture any modern man making a romantic issue over a tissue?

Lying quietly and unobtrusively in my ‘war memento’ drawer, untouched for forty one years, were my war ribbons, a black beret my wife had finally gotten me to stop wearing six months after I’d left the service, a heavy brass ashtray that looked as if it had been around for two or three centuries, and a German bayonet nesting comfortably in a long black scabbard.

My wife, looking over my shoulder, repeated a litany, oft-repeated: “ Other men in the service brought home diamonds, and assorted souvenirs worth thousands, and you brought home junk, junk.”

“I brought myself home in one piece. In me, my dear, you have a priceless diamond. Cut me the wrong way and I shatter.” I replied cleverly as I walked out of the bedroom and into our walk-in-closet.

Hanging ever so neatly in its plastic jacket was a formal suit I had made-to-measure years ago. I remember my 'one and only' saying, “Go get yourself a formal, it will save on suits and you’ll be able to wear it to all the formal affairs. It’s the practical thing to do.” My wife makes a profession out of being practical.

To complement the suit I purchased a formal shirt bristling with stiffness at the collar, a collar stud that increased the agony, a black velvet bowtie, a pair of braces to keep me up, and a shiny black patent leather pair of shoes.

I wore the suit once. It took me forty five minutes to get into the rig. I stood straight jacketed in front of the mirror, a robot, an armored knight of yore.

Off we went to a wedding, my wife, my formal suit and I. My collar stud was soon actively trying to drill a hole just below my adam’s apple. My collar, unrelentingly stiff, began sandpapering the rest of my neck, and the anti-perspirant so trustingly applied, became less anti and more pro as the evening wore on and I wore out. My black patent leather shoes, sans built-in support, offered no sanctuary for my fallen arches, fallen from grace years before.

Hanging ever so neatly in its plastic suit jacket, my formal suit, after only one sortie, slumbers on along with shoes, studs, and stiff collars.

During my hunt I came across a double-decker wood pencil box, one I had used way back in 1930 while in my second year of school. This sturdily built ‘antique’ had weathered 56 years of comings and goings and looked as new as the first time I saw it. Products were made to last in those days. Pride came first, profits were secondary. Still intact were three pencils, two crayons, an eraser, a pencil-sharpener and an undelivered letter to Sarah Rubenstein. It read, “Dear Sarah I love you do you love me I will let you have this pencil box if you say yes.” I was chicken back then but I sure knew how to spell.