September 15, 2008

• It's All A Blur

  Dear Folks,

  

  Here they are, playing on a No-Ree-Teo, or playground equipment, the way they say it in Korean.

  

  Well, this will be a long entry, unless my conscious gets the better of me.  I am trying to find anything to do to avoid getting down and doing what I most needed to do during this three-day holiday.  Across the hall, there lies a box in a room.  And that box has a good many friends, other boxes, sitting there on the floor, and on my couch, couch for that waiting room, where we play padook. 

  Playground Fun

  These here boxes (or more properly, those there boxes) contain what you might call a whole bunch of papers, news articles printed out from my printer, along with the genuine article, real newsprint, from newspapers I have collected here over the past ten years, English language South Korean newspapers. 

  I have one confession to make.  I am a packrat, alas.  I am sure you have probably met a few other like me in your life.  You may even have one in your family.  Packrats must be dealt with square on, by themselves.  Nobody else can do it for them.  They have to take themselves by the horns and make themselves do triage on their things, their precious stuff.  

  My wife is an amazing woman, in that she can tolerate, even love, such a packrat as myself.   I expect I will stumble into the end of my life, in my old age, not with any savings much to speak of, but a rather large old house, replete with books, and a shed out back that has grown bit by bit into a veritable barn, full of books that I have never read any more than a little here and there, chipping through them from time to time. 

  That's the thing.  If you read all your books, or are at least plowing your way through them, that's OK.  But I have books I know I will never read.  I have long since lost interest in some subjects and have become far more interested in ... You guessed it! ... (Not!)  Baptist theology (Nope, folks, contrary to popular (dis)belief, that's not a oxymoron, or any other moron for that matter!  Nor is, fancy this ... Baptist Scholarship!). 

  So, I will have to sift through my books here and give them to various friends and institutions, which would like to have them. I have already done some.  The local branch of the national university was delighted to have all of my old Korean language study books, back from my army days, as they were based on the North Korean language.  I was happy to be rid of them without having to toss them out.  Nothing tugs on a packrat's tender gut more than to see something that might, just might, have some value perfunctorily tossed out.  Just that phrase, "Well, then shall we toss it out?"  brings on haunting memories and the heebie jeebies for your tried-and-true packrat. 

  I gave away maybe a thousand books in 1989, in one big move.  It took me awhile to sift through the stuff, stored in my parent's home.  I gave them by subject category to friends who held a strong interest in each subject.  That felt good, and necessary.

  Moving from two buildings over to this place, down on the first floor five or six years ago, was a veritable blessing because it forced me to throw so much away.  I had no choice.  The house was sold and the new one bought and paid for.  We had to go.  Six movers were hustling us out the door, those blessed men (and one woman, who incidentally could lift every bit as much as any of the muscular men there).  She was a big woman, and had done that work for a long time. 

  When we moved in, my wife and I laughed about our observation that that was the first time we had had a clean house in years.   The same will be true two years hence, when we make our great exodus to the U.S. of A.  And friends, that time will come all too fast.   When kids tug on you all the time, from "all five quarters," you don't have time to think in any systematic, memorable way.  It's all just a blur. 

  So, without further ado, while these first six photos are uploading, I shall make a foray into the next room and enact triage on one hapless overflowing box of papers. 

  Ugg...  Much time later ...  I got through about one and a half boxes.   Hallelujah! 

  

  Above, here we are in Granma's Home.

  Love, Padooker

  • 9:12 am
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