My Top Dresser Drawer; 431 words

Entering your 70’s makes you look back on your life. I have the habit of cleaning the top of my dresser by putting some of the clutter in the top drawer. Over the years, I’ve randomly collected letters, birthday cards, little trinkets and other life items I just couldn’t quite throw away. I now look at that drawer and realize that someone I love may have to go through those remnants of my life after I’m gone if I don’t deal with these things myself. They may not understand their meaning, or they may be surprised by some of the unexplained letters or other saved items or photos. It’s probably best that I sort through them, absorb them, and then discard most of it. I also am realizing that there are many stories in these saved mementos of my life. So as I go through my top dresser drawer, I plan to write about some of these events that helped shape my life. As I look back, I realize that I have had a pretty good seat on the timeline of Human history on Earth. I have had unique, rich, and varied experiences and opportunities in my life. My grandfather once told me that he felt he had lived in the best of possible times, for he had lived the spectrum of horse and buggy days to putting a man on the moon. He has a pretty good point, but I think the slice of the timeline I’ve experienced isn’t too bad, either. I’m a baby boomer, through and through. I grew up in post-war suburbia playing cowboys and Indians in the ‘50s, and went through high school when local garage bands played rock and roll at the Friday night high school sock hop. I went to college during the draft days of the Vietnam War when I transformed myself from a type A college athlete to a rebellious long-haired draft resister I delivered newspapers during the days after President Kennedy was assassinated and marveled that each house had a TV on and the TVs were all broadcasting the same news coverage, most notably the funeral march with the drums beating and the horse dancing in front of Kennedy’s carriage. I watched our nation loose its innocence during the Kennedy/King/Kennedy assignations. I marched in the Vietnam War protests and knew people who felt revolution was the only answer. I also joined society to support my family and consciously tried to enact positive change from within the system. Hopefully, some of you will find my unique perspective to be, at least, entertaining.

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