Carol Fisher-Linn
Life is full of surprises, especially if you have a desk (or junk drawer) you haven’t rummaged in for some time. National Clean Your Desk Day is Tuesday, January 12. To write this article, I needed to advance my personal calendar a bit so I could give you some ideas based on what treasures I found. My desktop was already cleared (I used it to display my nativity scene), so I chose a middle desk drawer that was a catchall. Come, join me in a treasure hunt.
A few bills and papers from December that needing filing were on top but once I removed the top layer, I found a hodgepodge of things I’d long forgotten I had. Below the papers was a calendar from 2024. Flipping through it, I realized 2024 was a Leap Year. I found a note to myself on February 29th. “Surprise! Not every four years! See Science of Leap Year 2020 – Smithsonian.” Of course, I Googled it. According to that article, our solar year is 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds, but our calendar gives us 365 days. It must be evened out with leap years, but mathematically that still doesn’t work. The slack must be taken up so eventually we lose a leap now and again. 97 out of 400 are leap years – next leap year skipped will be 2100. I guarantee I’m going to miss it. One thing that is fun about calendars is they can be reused. I bought a lovely one for my friend in 2009 (did not send) but a quick search revealed I’d best mail it to her asap because it is good again this year!
Next came a church bulletin folded in half with a bunch of memorial cards inside. There’s a joke that you can always tell a Polish person by the collection of memorial cards they have. I found cherished family, friends, neighbors and relatives, several beloved community members and one from John Fitzgerald Kennedy when I drove with a friend to Washington D.C. to stand in line overnight in the cold drizzle to pay my respects. You know, finding these cards recalls people I haven’t thought about in years, yet today, just speaking their names, I recall them for a moment and feel their presence. It’s a good thing to do with those you’ve loved. Call their names and feel them near. They are. I promise.
Uncovered a diaper pin – who still has diaper pins? Oh, for the good old days??? Next, like a crow, I reached for a shiny object. It was a “golden” dollar token from a ribbon cutting at the Seneca Niagara Casino’s grand opening 12/31/2002. Today The Seneca Nation runs three Class III gaming facilities in WNY.
A small plastic envelope held age-darkened wheat, Indian head pennies from 1901 through 1905, 1913, and one steel 1943 WWII penny from the year of my birth. The 1913 coin interested me because it reminded me that it was the first year that Parcel Post Service was inaugurated. I remember odd trivia like this so I looked it up to confirm. I found some amusing stories. At first 20 pounds was allowed to ship but it was quickly changed to 50, opening doors never imagined. The largest object sent was a complete bank, shipped from the manufacturer, 127 miles away. 40 tons of bricks – one shipment at a time, to Vernal, Utah. Obviously, the new rules were quickly revised. By far the strangest “items” shipped were children. Records show a 48.5 pound 6-year-old child from Idaho, May Pierstorff, with 59 cents of postage stuck onto her coat. She was sent 73 miles in the train baggage car to visit grandparents. And then there was 8-month-old James Beagle in Ohio, also sent to grandparents. (Smithsonian broadcast December 21, 2013) USPS immediately clarified their rules limiting living things to honeybees, 1-2-day-old poultry, some adult birds, rodents, scorpions, etc.
So many more treasures were found but now, I encourage you to follow my lead. Don’t put things in the back of your shelf. Trash or find a new home for them instead, perhaps sending items to others who share the memory. Send them a note explaining why an item was important to you. It just might make their day!