Your Empty Nest

      Having packed up my classroom last Friday for a much anticipated summer vacation, I have spent the past week packing up my house to begin a new “home adventure” with my husband.  We are now full fledged empty nesters having gotten both of our boys successfully through college. We are now ready to start a new adventure without our boys.

      I’ve had some interesting, reflective moments on the cement floor of our garage over the past seven days.  As I sifted through several boxes labeled by our youngest son, Jimmy, a recent Citadel graduate, I saw one box marked “Jimmy’s Important Stuff”  I cut the strapping tape from the box, folded back the lid and came across a long roll of POGS.  Remember those?  In the 90’s, kids would play POGS against each other and win or lose them from a fellow player.  Oh, no; not Jimmy.  He would sit and watch kids play POGS at their big brothers and sisters swim meets but hoard his-never taking the lid off the tube of POGS.  Jimmy was even known to say “POGS are my life”.   Next, I came to box after box labeled “Jimmy’s cereal boxes” Remember when Wheeties featured an athlete every week or so on the front of the box? Well, we obviously are still the proud owners of all of those cereal boxes. 

      Then, I came to Billy’s boxes marked “Billy’s baseball cards.  I opened each box to find index cards sticking up labeled with alphabet letters from A to Z separating the players by last name. These memories mixed in with every stub from every Dodger game, MidState Fair ticket stubs, stuffed Sponge Bobs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures, a stuffed Lion King from Disneyland, yearbooks, and on and on and on. Not only do I have all of the boys’ memoribilia to repack and move, but they left us with their two 17 year old cats, Shaver Lake and Cleo.  I’ve been told old cats will move to a new home easily if you apply peanut butter to their paws.  I’m not sure whether moving the cats of the memoribilia will be easier.

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