The Last Six Boxes

As you may or may not know, I had to clean out my parents house a little while back.  Of the many things that made their way to Pittsburgh as part of that effort were what I think was like about a dozen bankers boxes full of documents.  In Chicago all that stuff had been in file cabinets in the basement.  Somewhere along the way I decided that I could manage getting rid of the cabinets - I took them to Goodwill - but I didn't have it in me to go through the documents.  So all the papers went into bankers boxes and made the trip to Pennsylvania.

I do think I made one effort in Chicago to deal with documents.  In what is probably an over reaction to identity theft I decided that much of what was there needed to be shredded.  I remember taking a couple of boxes of old checks to a Staples because they said they had bulk shredding.  I also remember being there for more than an hour because it seemed like I should be there until the shredding actually happened and that the person doing the shredding only worked on it when there were no customers, and the shredder wasn't really anything special so it kept getting gummed up just like your unit at home might do.  More than an hour for what must have been a large shoebox probably was what tipped the scales in favor of putting the rest of the documentation under the heading of "deal with it later."

I did make an effort to get through the stuff once it arrived at home.  I got through a couple of boxes.  There was a lot to dispose of, much of which seemed like it should be shredded.  If you've never gotten a cancelled check back from your bank - something they haven't done in over a decade - you are fortunate.  I started to accumulate a box of used office supplies: mostly file folders and binders, but also sheet protectors and paper clips.  The clips aren't particularly special, but they can go through the shredder, so they got set aside whether it made sense or not.  There was also a little bit of kryptonite - things with no real value but that also seem like a real shame to throw away.  That went into another box.

At some point work must have started again and I walked away from the project, and then life became a little bit of a roller coaster and I never got back to it.  There were six boxes left and they sat in the basement for years awaiting their disposition.

Recently I decided it was time to finish off the gig.  I brought the last six boxes up to the dining room figuring if they were legitimately in the way I wouldn't be able to ignore them.  Most of what was left was very much like what I'd processed already.  There was one box that was almost entirely kryptonite.  Some of the things I found:

• Parents first Passports
• Parents fist lease
• Bill of sale from the HP house in 1967
• My first CMU invoices
• Pictures of Dad with a bunch of people from the Nixon administration
• Mom's teaching certification
• Hardcopy of note from the Principal observing one of Dad's classes

But of all of it, the bit that was the densest kryptonite of it all was a stack of valentines from my mom to my dad from before they were married.

I couldn't find the wherewithal to dispose of everything.  So the last six boxes become 8 lawn bags of shredded documents and a single box of "family history."  Maybe I'll manage to pitch it later.  Maybe Leo will have to do it when he cleans out this house.  Anyway "last six" is a bit of a misnomer.  There are still three large boxes of LPs I don't know what to do with.  A couple of boxes of things that may or may not be antiques, and two or three more banker's boxes of loose photos.  I guess I still have at least one more push to make before I am done.

Or maybe it'll never be done.