Nancy's Notes

Here’s a True Confession of a Stockton Housewife: I am a clipper and a saver, a stasher and a filer. I’ve got notebooks and files and shoeboxes and storage boxes and plastic totes full of stuff that I’ve saved over the years from every place we’ve lived, every job we’ve worked at, every life we’ve had. And yes, every once in a while I actually go through some of that stuff with the idea of purging and pitching, but very little gets tossed because, well, it’s just a part of our life story. Besides, I want to make sure my sons have plenty of entertainment when they clean up after I’m gone.

Speaking of those sons, I know I’ve mentioned in this column the “time capsules” of things from their childhood that I had saved in large totes. For several years, I had wanted to give the boxes to the boys, but I wanted to do this with both boys when we were all together. I wanted plenty of time for them to look at the stuff, and mostly for their kids to see what came out of the totes.

Last Christmas it finally worked out because, now that both families live far away from us, it was the first time that they all stayed overnight, so we had a long evening together. So after we had opened gifts and before we started playing games and eating again, I told Bob this was the best time we’ve had to give the boys their time capsules, and I asked him to help me get the totes out of storage shelves in the garage. That part would have gone over better if I had given him advance notice, but I didn’t know for sure that everyone was going to stay overnight with us.

Our sons were such good sports and went along with it, when they could have easily taken the “thanks, but no thanks” approach. They opened their individual totes and began pulling out baby toys and rattles and church busy books and wall hangings from their baby rooms and Little Golden Books and school projects and writing assignments and artwork and photographs and GRADE CARDS! Oh my, the grandkids had a blast!

This was such a fun evening and one I had waited for and wanted to do for years, but the time was never right. Finally, the time couldn’t have been more perfect. And the bonus: the boys got to/HAD TO take home their totes, which cleared up space on the the storage shelves for more of MY stuff! It was a win-win-win family fun activity!

Now there remains three or four totes of Bob’s and my childhood stuff, plus our early years together, that are stashed away in storage. Just as we enjoyed with our boys and their families, I think it would be fun for us to open our time capsules with our kids and grands present. I don’t even remember all the things that are in my time capsules, so it would be fun for us, as well. I’m sure, we would find some of our grade cards and school projects in there (mostly mine; Bob wasn’t a saver like me), just as theirs were. I would just have to watch for—and then SIT ON!—a particular shoebox full of love letters from the summer after our high school graduation, when Bob went on the harvest and was gone all summer.

I would say that my clipping and saving has gotten less over the last few years as I’m asking myself: Why am I saving this? Who am I saving this for? Where am I going to put this? Oh, but then I remember... we took two large totes out of the garage to give to our sons! Heck, I’ve got PLENTY of space!