...Another Dad's Treasure - Part 1

“I am NOT a packrat.” So I told Marina as we were cleaning out our storage room today, “I just have a profound sense of history.”

She rolled her eyes in the manner that I’ve come to recognize as Stage 1 of the “He is Unbelievable” alert. It is a behavioral quirk shared by all three of my girls, traditionally handed down from mother to daughter to sister to sister. I have no idea how, or why, the tradition got started and no one will tell me…

We were repacking some of my books into new boxes when I noticed that she was relegating some of my favorite volumes to a growing pile next to her. I pointed out to her that she seemed to have missed the box. She informed me that these book’s bindings were broken, pages were missing, or sundry bugs and rodents had used them as a source of nesting material, therefore these books were garbage.

“Garbage!” I cried, rising indignantly to my full, fearsome five feet seven inches, “How can you call a hardcover third edition of George Carlin’s 'Brain Droppings' garbage?”

“Dad, this book has been left out in the rain, survived the Great Hot Water Heater Bursting of ’98, and been dropped into the bathtub water at least twice that I know of. It is swollen, stiff and most of the pages are stuck together. It’s time to let go, Dad. Just let it go...” she counseled with infuriating calm.

“This will be a collector’s item soon, you know, since he passed away.” I said earnestly as I bowed my head with what I hoped would be interpreted as reverence.

“And this book has gone the way of its author, Dad. Time to move on...”

Kids today have no respect for great literature.

After decimating my reading materials, we began digging through a trunk containing the souvenirs accumulated in my travels, when I was young and carefree (i.e. before becoming a permanent resident of the Dadhood). Once again, Marina began making a pile next to her of some of my treasured artifacts. When I protested, she said, “Fine then, if you can tell me what these 'treasures' are and where they came from, you can keep them. OK?”

She was setting me up. She knew it. I didn’t.

She held up one item that I remembered vaguely from the seventies. I seem to recall it had more pieces, though, when it could still be played. Or worn. Or hung from my car antenna.
Oh yeah, good times.
I just couldn’t recall why.
Hey, it was the seventies, man!

I lost that game of show-and-tell and so watched traces of my youth dumped out among the orange peels and coffee grounds…

(To be continued…)