Some really good stuff

 I’ve been spending time cleaning up my files. Sounds grim but I actually enjoying sorting, organizing, and, especially, tossing outdated papers, realizing that I don’t really need all those photo-copied handouts for a class I once taught and might again someday, but in all honesty, probably won’t. It feels good to throw it out.

I find that information that was once important no longer is: those recipes that I thought I’d try out but never did, letters from former students that no one else will ever want to read, summaries of books I once liked, a stack of publicity fliers for a book I wrote several years ago, song sheets, beautiful bird pictures, and on it goes. It might be initially hard to part with the bird pictures, but if I grit my teeth and just do it, I end up feeling better. It’s all part of downsizing, of trying to make life less complicated for my kids when someday it all goes to them to make the what-to-do-with-all-this decisions.

Most of my files are moderately well organized and alphabetized. They make sense to me and I can usually find what I need. But my intuitive brain can only handle so much logic and alphabetized organization. So I’ve developed some special folders for those items I don’t know how to categorize. It could be a good quote I heard on the evening news, a funny poem I found in the newspaper (often anonymous), a Reader’s Digest story—items that made me laugh, touched my spirit, inspired me to do some research, or broadened my perspective on a subject I was interested in. Items I don’t want to forget and lose, but just didn’t know where to file.

So here’s my system: I have files folders with the following titles: Stuff, More Stuff, Good Stuff, Really Good Stuff 1, Really Good Stuff 2, and Stuff To Think About. I realize that probably wouldn’t work for everyone, but it does for me. It lets my whimsical side tease my rational well-organized side, and the two end up getting along better together.

Every once in a while, I take out one of my Stuff folders and just go through it. I find ideas for poems or articles, illustrations for talks, funny memories, great ideas—in short, scads of snippets and tidbits. I love snippets and tidbits. So I’m going to share some of what I found today in one folder, the one simply labeled “Stuff.” 

*Here’s a news item that appeared in April of 1997 (sent to me in an email from a friend):

“Earlier this year, the dazed crew of a Japanese trawler was plucked out of the Sea of Japan clinging to the wreckage of their sunken ship. Their rescue, however, was followed by immediate imprisonment once authorities questioned the sailors on their ship’s loss. To a man they claimed that a cow, falling out of a clear blue sky, had struck the trawler amidships, shattering its hull and sinking the vessel within minutes.

“They remained in prison for several weeks, until the Russian Air Force reluctantly informed Japanese authorities that the crew of one of its cargo planes had apparently stolen a cow wandering at the edge of a Siberian airfield, forced the cow into the plane’s hold and hastily taken off for home.

“Unprepared for live cargo, the Russian crew was ill-equipped to manage a now rampaging cow within its hold. To save the aircraft and themselves, they shoved the animal out of the cargo hold as they crossed the Sea of Japan at an altitude of 30,000 feet.”

Not so good for the cow, but the confession freed the innocent Japanese prisoners. 

*I found a one-page book review for a volume called Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit and Wisdom from History’s Greatest Wordsmiths by Mardy Grothe. It looked good, so I just ordered the book on Kindle and am enjoying it now. A few of the choice oxymorons from the introduction: “The best cure for insomnia is to get lots of sleep” (W.C. Fields); “I am deeply superficial” (Ava Gardner); “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else” (Margaret Mead).

*Here’s a gift idea: give someone an empty jar and say, “Here. I’m giving you space.”

*Some conversation starters (if you’re desperate):
--Coca-Cola was originally green.
--Barbie’s measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
--Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
--A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why.
--It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
--The youngest pope was 11 years old.
--The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
--An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

*Here’s how poet William Stafford answered the question, “What do you do about writer’s block?” He answered, “I lower my standards.”

*A definition of the manger: “a feeding trough large enough to contain the Bread of Life.”

That’s probably enough stuff for one day. I’m afraid I haven’t reduced the volume of my Stuff file today. What would I throw away? When I’m too old to laugh (which will be never, I hope), I’ll just let my great grandchildren deal with it.