When my kids were living at home they would periodically clean out their closet. I would go by the room and see stuff piled everywhere. They called it "dumping the closet".

Today I "dumped" the library closet.

It needed it. I had rifled through the boxes many times looking for books and restacking the boxes. I want to move this office into the library but I needed to get the antique drop front desk out of there and do some rearranging. I have been working on it for almost seven hours now and can report that the closet is going back together nicely. The room, and the living room, and the hall, and the shop, all look like hell.

Part of the problem is that I have been finding wonderful stuff. I have been coordinating what goes into boxes and what stays out on the shelves. And I have been finding yearbooks and memorabilia from a career I didn't want and no longer have.

I worked for 16 plus years in Brunswick. The core staff that was there when I started was still there when I left. Of course other people came and went and in the normal course of events in an office that was so closely knit together their departure usually rang some deep emotions.

One of our more beloved office mates was Carl. He was old, terribly thin, and had washed out tattoos running up both arms. He had served in the Pacific during WWII. He was loved by all as a decent softspoken hard working man with no anger left in him. But he could be riled if you really worked at it.

Anyway we also had a co-worker who had started out as a juvenile deliquent in Philadelphia. The judge had told Jim at the tender age of seventeen that he had a choice of joining the Navy or going to jail. He became an electrician and then went to work at the Naval Air Station in Brunswick when he got out of the service. Jim is a marvelous Irishman with an enormous appetite for work, beer and Bushmills Irish Whiskey.

He is also something of a poet. He used to write a poem for each office member when they left or retired. Usually it was pretty funny but it always touched our emotional sides as well.

Then Carl retired.

Jim wrote the poem but that tough old Irishman also cried when he read it. He swore he would never write another poem and for years he didn't. No matter who left he sat silent at the going away parties.

Then I left for Guam and he wrote me a poem. I was staggered at the time. My tears and his marked what it meant for both of us.

Today I found that poem and tears flowed again. They are flowing now. Love is expressed in many ways and sometimes takes us by surprise.