"Pack rat" doesn't make it. The kind that keeps EVVVERYthing, such that the keepSAKES are in there somewheres but ya usually can't find 'em so what good are they. There's a clinical term for this. NO STOP CEASE don't tell me; I've blocked it. Have software to filter it out; just can't seem to put muh hands on the CD-ROM. It's not Denial. It's Refusal. There's a Difference. Annyway the wife's case is a milder one so we're fine y'see. Haw.

Old family photos & studio portait pictures, some to like the nineteen-teens I think. Great-Grampa Dan in his glory days of the 4th Ward Dimmycrathic Club of Danbury. Mom's story was they elected him Chandelier 'cause somebody said they needed one and Flynn thought it was an office & made a motion which carried. Dunno. Old family Bibles, the huge giant kind with the big clasps & gold leaf & so weighty they MUST be True & look like they have been stamped Nihil Obstat by His Holiness and Imprimatur by Almighty God Himself. Make ye think twice, believe you me. Some of Dad's writings, both his career & his avocation. Mom's typewriter; she wrote also. Political campaign literature & button etc.; she ran for satewide office in '62. Lost. Republican: durty linen, skeletons, black sheep. Naah. Social-climbing; lace curtain. Handed-down dinnerware & glassware & quilts & and all suchlike from wife's side, they're much better at preserving those things. Her father's paintings. He became an excellent artist and art professor and university art department chairman, after fighting in the Pacific as a US Marine. Remarkable remarkable man. Funny as Hell, too. I have his bayonet. Also "Ma's Sword." Ma was my maternal grandmother. Widowed, she lived with us. Yeah. Her sword had been captured by some ancestor, never got straght exactly whom, from the Mexicans or the Spaniards in the War. Never get straight exactly which War. Remember the Maine. Santy Anna gained the day nowait. Curved blade, fancy carvings on wooden handle & scabbard. No crosspiece handguard at handle. Ceremonial, I think. The important thing is it was Ma's Sword. Symbol of Authority. Oh yeah. Ruled the Roost. Sword kept hidden away at bottom of forbidden window-seat storage compartment. Never wielded. That wasn't the point. So to speak. It was There. Talisman. That was enough. Have it over the mantle now. Doesn't work same way for me at all. Excalibur after le morte d'Arthur. Haw. A-waaay, Santy Anno.