Skip to main content

2015 Collection: Sporadic Notes From The Toy Factory #15

 June 23, 2015     Useless


    My daughter is leaving for Bemidji after spending four days with us going through 'her life' in the upstairs-under-the-roof dormers. It was just time that she do it and reduce/organize some room in them that we could utilize, now that she was living her own life after college. 

    Her visit was timed to coincide with a Palm Family Reunion on the 20th. She tackled the last unexplored dormer in the house. I had hauled three big garbage bags of stuff to Joe's, just before work, so his garbage man could haul it away. 

    Tomorrow, he's coming over for coffee to discuss the KJ102 radio interview for a "Friends & Neighbors," segment about THE RAVEN. Don't know what good it'll do. We've had a good number of renewals and new gift subscriptions lately, but once again the "What's the point?" feeling has come over me that seeped into other aspects of my life. 

    Daughter had gone through old stuff; keeping some, throwing some; she showed me an old wooden picnic basket that once was belonged to my folks. I felt, but didn't express, "What's the point? Why keep it?" if in the end all you have are your memories anyway.

    I remember them using that basket and Mom packing it with all her good food, etc; I can almost see her ... And now it's packed away in a dark dormer, in my old house, never to see the light of day exept whe someone gets the ambition to clean the space out. For dumb!


Comments

We write because we can't not write; we save baskets to store memories.

Popular posts from this blog

A Memorial to Jerry Solom August 24, 1945 -- July 23, 2019 No. 2

               Jerry Solom, August 24, 1945 -- July 23, 2019 This is a random image memorial post about my late friend, who died a year ago. I wrote a memoir/tribute to him in the Wannaskan Almanac on July 23, 2020. Here's the link to that: http://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2020/07/thursday-july-23-2020.html Me and Jerry with Marion in background in Stonington, Maine in 2015 prior to setting sail to Hull, MA. This is an excerpt from the story  "A Louisiana Ruse" by Steven G. Reynolds Published in 2000 in THE RAVEN: Northwest Minnesota's Original Art, History & Humor Journal      This describes the end of a 43-hour bus ride we took from Fargo, North Dakota to Slidell, Louisiana, where Jerry's boat was in dock prior to his voyage to Norway in 2000. I was there as part of the maintenance crew, accompanying Jerry, his son Terry Solom of Minneapolis, and their fr...

The Chicken Coop Revisited

 “Just  of Scientific Mind: The Chicken Coop Revisited.” by Steven G. Reynolds Gramma Eff was not deaf, not dumb, nor was she blind. She was not daft this Gramma Eff, just of scientific mind. She wore knee boots, a long white coat, goggles, special gloves, and entered in, a study of, chickens, and their loves. “Chickens, and their loves?” you ask, incredulously, with one raised brow, as if of what she studied hence made a mockery of you now. Gramma kept her chickens clean and altho you might think it mean she washed their feet, their beak, their bod --the neighbors thought it very odd. That no one out should enter in Gramma’s little chicken pen For Gramma too, removed her clothes her boots, her coat, her goggles--those gloves, that Gramma always wore whenever she opened that very door of all her chicken coops there we’ve learned strangers there, their presence spurned Gramma found these chickens smart, they liked color, music, art. Gramma learned their innate needs went far b...

Mac Furlong: Real Hunter

   This last Tuesday, October 1st, in Reed River, Sven saw Mac Furlong hurrying down Main Street on his way to sign up for the Big Buck Contest at Normies On Main . Mac was wearing his Reed River Bank clothes so Sven didn’t recognize him right off, Mac walking so serious like, but Sven ought to have known that about this time of year all the local deer hunters are getting real anxious. Beginning soon after the Roseau County Fair in July, hunter types begin walking about the outdoors sports departments in their local hardware stores and sporting goods shops salivating over the latest hunting gear, wearing at least one parcel of florescent orange on their person as if to let the ordinary public know that, they, in fact, are real hunters of a serious nature, although temperatures are yet in the eighties. “See here, my florescent orange insulated cap with earflaps?” “Lo and behold, my florescent-orange camo jacket with elbow padding and several important pockets?” “Check o...