JUL-A-4

PACKING UP—NOT JUST FOR INDIA—BUT FOR THE LONG HAUL AS THE ARCHIVES OF MY LIFE ARE PACKED AWAY TIGHTLY IN STORAGE IN A HOT HUMID JULY, WITH FALLING TREES IN THE DERWOOD WOODS

July 8—10, 2003

Double, bubble, toil and trouble… the woods are full of falling and fallen trees. Many of the trees were once felled to create the paper for the files and reams of paper that surround me. I was born just one generation too early to take full advantage of the digital and microchip era, I just packed away my little portable Olivetti typewriter—granted, I have not used it in a quarter century, but it was the “state of the art” for my college work and graduate application letters. I had moved the entire collection of my photo print albums upstairs into storage last week, and late last night I moved the 39 files of color transparency slides into their carefully indexed and cataloged storage—with all of that now probably trending toward the smaller, denser stack I have also begun to accumulate—the floppy discs and CD’s of the next era in photography, which may make it easier for me to store the several million images I have collected in global travels. I also have packed away the completed manuscripts of papers never published, and the essays, which have never seen the light of day nor a publisher’s press. In fact, there are three intact books ready for the presses, and a dozen more requiring editorial work before they would be ready, but otherwise complete—and all of them now mothballed. I might be “Emily Dickinson” whose collected “arbeit” of poetry was discovered after her death, and re-assembled. Or, I might more likely be the one whose heirs hire a backhoe and a dumpster to carefully winnow the collected works into the recycling bins.

There are several more trees down in the Derwood woods. One is the whole pile of manuscript pages which constituted several Bronco loads to fetch it down the hill to the front, where the Montgomery Recycles” has reassured me that it would be picked up today, even if it is more than half a tone, so long as it is all in paper bags none weighing more than 45 pounds. I am in full compliance—having run me out of paper grocery bags I had stored up for this purpose. I also had saved six boxes of five each “transfile” cases in which the as yet to be sorted souvenirs and papers and slide presentations have been stuffed to get them out of the master bedroom. As the dust settled to the floor where the books and papers had been stacked awaiting a publishers’ submission, I am amazed to see the size of the master bedroom—in which major ballroom dances could be hosted. There is a hollow ring to it now, and it will be enlarged still further as the smaller bedroom is cannibalized, converted into an expanded master bath with the whirlpool tube and a walk in closet. So, one of the trees has been processed into paper.

Three trees more, in addition to the half a tree that fell onto my neighbor Ed Luban’s lawn on the eve of the Fourth of July, came down in the storm on the fifth of July. One looks like it was hit by lightning, a tulip poplar, and is split down the middle and collapsed in the hollow swail ahead of my house—a total loss, but it is gong to remain where it lies in the woods. An oak and a dogwood got dropped at the driveway, with their crowns blocking the drive, until I hauled them into the woods to get access for the Bronco. No property damage resulted—as fortunately was the case for my neighbor, but someone has got a load of free firewood to sell for more than the &1250 they charged him just to cut it up and haul it away, and that does not yet include the cost of the trimming the jagged edge of the tree and tarring treatment of the gash—still on my side of the property line. If I had someone haul away the trees that went down just on this one day, it would be more than that. I had a look at very substantial trees, three in number, that are standing straight and tall, but leafless. They would be called a hazard, imminently about to fall down, if any of the previous residents had looked at them, but they seem to be in no position to hurt much, except for the second oak from the house which might fall where the new breakfast room will be. So, that is on my list of final items to go over with Dale Kramer on his visit early Thursday morning.

I had mailed Michael and Judy a note with a gift on their Tenth Anniversary from Haiti, but since it did not arrive, I sent a new one, with a note of Michael’s own. For some long ago Father’s Day, he had given me a “Coupon Book, with a free car wash, Trash Dump, and “Anything Else You Ned Help With.” I sent that along with the card and note just re-sent to them, saying, “Well…right about now would be the right time to cash in my coupons!

I submitted the “Haiti and Health” article requested of me along with a large selection of the photos that were pulled to be used as illustrations for the article. I also had to pack up the stuff pulled out for India, just to get it off the floor to make room for the file cases, which were packed, into the site previously occupied by the backpacks and other items. The closets are tightly packed now with the boxed stuff I had been putting together and now they are gong to be sealed off by the furniture ahead of their doors. Dale Kramer offered to come earlier tomorrow during our meeting for the sake of finalizing the details along with the new sets of the architectural plans, and he and I will carry up the pieces that will require two people to handle. Then, it starts, in my absence.

I will tune back in after our meeting, and after I come to a meeting I had set up at GWU for the Green Family Foundation to discuss Haiti and our Global Health Institute for those who have Infectious Disease burdens and an increasing AIDS epidemic as well.

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