Boxes of memories

I just spent the week up in Michigan with my mom. A year ago, I promised her that I would come up for a week so that we could clean out the basement, and I kept my promise. I drove up last Saturday after running a miserably slow 10K in South Bend, IN, and we got to work. We spent a full 8 hours mulching and weeding out their garden before heading in to the basement. 

The rest of the week was dedicated to sorting, labeling, and reorganizing 43 years of family memories. More than 43 years, actually. We found the wedding gift that my grandparents' pastor gave to them when they were married--that was nearly 70 years ago. We found all kinds of pictures. We found my grandma's china. We had a great time while getting sweaty and dirty. It's amazing how much stuff can accumulate. 

So I ended up bringing back four shoe boxes to Kentucky that I needed to sort through. Turns out I saved cards and notes from my freshman year in high school through my freshman year in college, and I didn't remember having saved them. Amazing to read, really. I didn't remember that I had been a prolific letter-writer. I had penpals in two other countries and at least five other states, and I've forgotten all about all the hours I spent to put words to paper.

In one letter, I got a note from a friend saying that he was thinking about getting an e-mail account at the school he was attending, but he hadn't gotten around to applying for it yet. This was in the days before yahoo and hotmail. So we were writing letters. Lots of letters.

Some of my favorite notes I found were from my high school boyfriend. Ohh, I thought he was just the bee's knees. Based on his notes, he felt the same. We dated for almost two years, and I really have no idea where in the world he is now, but what great memories I have of that time. Incidentally, his third period English class was apparently torture as most of his notes to me seemed to start with "English is PAINFULLY boring."