Senior Daze

by Katie Bourg

About Katie: Having arrived in time for the Great (?) Depression, WWII, and all other 20th century problems, I am endowed with long and varied memories. Writing classes have long been my home away from home. Other people's stories are fascinating, and sharing is growth at its best. Hope you seniors will join me with your stories. Try it. You'll like it.

Spring brings out strange behavior patterns. I'm sitting and taking inventory of my living room. It's the almost-dark time of day. The sun has shone between showers, and April is trying to make up for what it has not yet done. There are two days left, but between sun bursts, rain that sounds like Niagara Falls seems to fill the air. Now, with May in sight, we get April showers.

In the dark, the dust does not show much, but I know it's there. A good housekeeper I have never been, except when the urge was upon me. Now I'm concentrating on a shelf over the TV, built several years ago by my son-in-law. It holds a very old, dusty Nativity scene. Like the April showers, it is presently misplaced.

I have held on to this relic for as long as I can remember. It sat under multiple Christmas trees during my youth. I don't remember when the camel lost his leg, or the babe his cradle. They both defy replacement. Some things have to be permanent, no matter how much the world changes. The camel has always told me so. The newer animals, collected over the years, concur. I admit to having delayed change a little long.

Two years ago, I excused my attitude. I decided I was getting too old to insure another season. If I wanted to see it again, I should not wait for right time. Now I'm still here, and so is the scene. My excuse is growing less believable every day. So I will take it off the shelf and give it a much-deserved rest. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. Only the camel knows.

The shelf above it holds bunnies and bears. A couple of koalas--Misha that celebrated Russia's chance at the Olympics, one from that Build-a-Bear place. There's a gaggle of stuffed geese, made by someone long gone. A china cat with a smirk on his face. (The real live one is sleeping in the chair beside me.) And a very strange stuffed turkey once made without benefit of pattern. They have all been sttting up there for years now. I have no reason to keep them, except I just want to.

My bookcases are sagging with books once read and never looked at again. Good stories that I might want to re-read, but never will. I must take them to the thrift store. Someone might find pleasure in the same tales I once enjoyed. I'll have to thumb through them first.

A rack on the wall holds a few old plates. One my son brought from Germany, when he was a young soldier. One celebrates our country's Bicentennial, adorned with a Liberty Bell. My grandmother's wedding plate sits between them. They should at least be dusted.

And then there are pictures. They are all over the walls. Smiling children, now grandparents. Ancient grandparents with names only I remember. And a couple of my husband. I can't take those down. Well, maybe I could. But I don't want to.

My china cupboard is full of treasurers I rarely look at. My milk glass dishes have not been to the table in years. Younger members of the family are firm believers in those paper plates that get damp and fall apart. They consider it too great a chore to drop a little china into a dishwasher. And plastic has replaced my red glass collection. Still, I might set a table again someday, so I won't get rid of anything yet.

I don't feel ready to be replaced. Why should my treasures be?