Cardboard Boxes
The Mark of a Man's Impermanence can be Measured in Cardboard Boxes

Once I may have thought that by the time a man reached my age, he would have been done with paying a mortgage, worrying about his children, or walking around cardboard boxes.
Wrong on all counts.

In the first case, my banker says that, with interest rates so low and deductible as well, my loan is a good investment. A realtor in my acquaintance puts a twist on Ben Franklin’s admonition that, “A penny borrowed is a penny earned.” Of course neither of them ever read Polonius’ advice to Laertes, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” Besides, I’ve decided it would be selfish for me to deny Ethel’s second husband the opportunity to pick up the note after I’m gone.

As far as children are concerned, I admire Dr. Laura, and wish I could be as tough a parent as she counsels, but I guess I’m just anxiety-ridden, and Ethel’s no help either. A secretary I worked for used to commiserate with me about our families, both of them soap opera stuff. We agreed that there were two kinds of households – those that admitted they were dysfunctional and those that wrote Christmas letters. I’m reminded of a conversation I overheard on a hotel elevator many years ago between two men in animated conversation. One was emphasizing with great agitation that he had had it out with his son and told him in no uncertain terms that he (the father) was cutting him off when he (the son) turned 55. I thought it was funny at the time.

About the cardboard boxes, on the heels of our bout with childhood viruses, Ethel’s mother suffered a misadventure that necessitated breaking up housekeeping and moving all her belongings. Some went to the grandchildren (Seattle, Minneapolis, and Prattville) and some came home with us. This was only 18 months after having moved her from her home of 35 years to an apartment in a retirement center. Both of these upheavals were compartmentalized for moving and storage in guess what? Cardboard boxes. Being self-sufficient (Ethel says tightwad), nothing would do but that we should move her in our trusty old farm truck – many, many loads. This wasn’t facilitated any amount by the fact that mama’s apartment was up two flights of stairs (no service elevator) and down a long breezeway. Then, some loads went to Prattville in one direction, and the rest came to Auburn 75 miles in the other direction, which taxed my command of logistics. Since I have not finished flooring the attic, the only dry, climate-controlled storage space was the basement which serves as laundry, utility room and an already overstuffed office.

Now being of a naturally jaunty spirit, I accepted all of this in reasonably good humor (Ethel says this bears no resemblance to the truth). But what has tested my equanimity to the utmost and caused me to consider going in for counseling is a succession of instances in which nursing staff at all four of the hospitals and health care facilities where mama has been a patient for the past four months have mistaken me for Ethel’s father and her mother’s husband. Ethel’s mother is 91. Ethel thinks it’s funny and her mother promotes the idea. If I was grumpy before… Ethel says all I need to do is to stand up straight and hold my shoulders back. Maybe a makeover, some hair color, perhaps Botox injections, a little silicone here and there, youthful frames for my glasses, low-cut Calvin Kleins, that sort of thing. Or, I could just grow a beard and stay away from nursing homes, whatever. Maybe by the time the equinox has passed and warm winds blow, I’ll undergo some metamorphosis back to my former self. Maybe rivers will run backward in their courses and clocks will stand still. Maybe I’ll just flatten all these cardboard boxes and haul them off to history’s landfill where some future archaeologist will wonder what kind of temporal society spawned them in the first place.

With apologies to the lyricist,

“Oh bury me deep on the lone prairie,

Where the coyotes howl and the wind blows free,”

You can dig my grave only six by three,

In a cardboard box you can bury me.

Respectfully,
Yr humbl & obdt svt