The Oak Desk

I recently made the decision that it’s past time to get rid of the roll top desk that sits under the window in our bedroom.  A roll top was something I’d always wanted.  I suppose I pictured myself sitting at that desk like some latter day Mark Twain; sipping expensive bourbon from a heavy crystal rocks glass, dipping pen in inkwell and writing the next great American novel.

I found my dream roll top some 20 years ago at a furniture store in nearby Pinole; one of those furniture stores that sells only solid oak furniture.  The store was going out of business and the desk was available at a better than fair price; SOLD.  The only caveat was that the store no longer did deliveries so getting it to the house was my problem.  My friend Dave had an outsized pickup truck and with the help of some store employees we got it into the truck.  We found out what a heavy bastard that desk really is when we got it home and Dave and I (sans the employees) grunted and groaned it up the stairs, gouging sheet rock, scratching walls and somehow twisting the desk making it slightly but permanently catawampus so that the drawers never quite closed right.  Yessir that desk is solid; very solid oak.  After two decades I’ve probably spent all of 30 minutes actually working at that desk.  There was bourbon though; expensive and cheap – from Maker’s Mark to Kessler; from a heavy rocks glass to Solo cups to straight from the bottle on especially bad days.  And while that old desk never served up a novel, great American or twaddle for that matter, it was a serviceable magnet for stuff and dust.

And so before the desk goes away I’m sifting through 20 years of relics, keepsakes and just plain junk. 

There are pins: An Oakland A’s pin and a commemorative Giant’s pin.  An Italian Catholic Federation pin from one of those periods scattered  throughout my life when I was trying to make a go at being a Roman Catholic (The Italian part was inherited from my mom.  Come to think of it so was the Roman Catholic part).  The club was best known for two things; a membership that argued passionately over the stupidest of things; and for throwing a semi-annual dinner of polenta, Italian sausage and roasted chicken.  And of course there was booze.  What Catholic Church function is complete without booze?  I tended bar on a few occasions and to be certain that the drinks were of proper quality I made sure to taste test; often; and in sufficient quantity. Our local church no longer has an ICF chapter.  Most of the membership was well into its AARP years some 15 years ago when I was active. The baseball pins were keepers but the ICF pin was banished to perdition.  One last pin I roll around in my fingers taking; a long look.  A simple pin really.  I squeeze my hand tightly around the brass U.S. – my dad’s pin from his days in the service.  That U.S. pin is really the only memento from his service in World War II.  I set it aside reverently. 

There are the remains of various jobs.  An old employee of the month award; a faux wood notepad holder/pen holder – sans pen.  From my days at Fox Industrial Sales I find some vendor’s business cards; R.L. “Bobby” Jarvis from Champion Pneumatic; Ken Wright from Stanley Hardware; Robert Shooks from Western Iron Alloy.  I collected these during my days as a fledgling buyer.  Maybe a dozen or more of these cards scattered in a drawer.  Drummers going from city to city, prospect to prospect; carrying catalogs, samples and ample supplies of hope.  These men pounded the pavement when cell phones were just a concept.  They spent their time at the airport waiting for the next flight out seated at one of the many banks of pay phones; things from a bygone era.  I flip through the cards and wonder what became of these guys?  Are they still working?  Are they even still with us?  They’re all faceless now.  Hell most pretty much became faceless the moment after I shook their hands and saw them out the door. 

With Beau

There are photos; stacks of photos.  Of relatives, friends, pets and places.  Photos of my Civil War reenacting days; playing at soldier with the Second Massachusetts Cavalry.  My children at various stages of life.  A younger Cora whose petite cuteness would turn heads on San Francisco’s Mission Street where she worked at a dental office.  A picture of me with my Afghan Hound, Beau.  It reminds me of a disservice I did to both my mom and the dog; buying him two short years before leaving for college and the rest of my life.  Leaving my mom to care for a big dog needing big exercise.  It reminds me of why I keep admonishing my nephew who pines for a dog of his own to hold off until his life is ready to accept the full responsibility.

Playing at war

I pull out a couple of layers of little checkbook boxes filled with cancelled checks some over ten years old.  Beneath the boxes in the bottom of the drawer is a bulging tattered and faded manila folder.  On the cover in red marker; “Misc. Term Papers.”  I open the folder and make my way through a thicket of bond typewriter paper, curling at the edges and showing the yellowing age of 40 years.  There’s an analysis of Henry James’ novel, The Portrait of a Lady.  I scan the professor’s remarks none of which seem very complimentary until I get to the last page; "B"; "Good". There’s another on Cosmic Pessimism in The Red Badge of Courage; "B"; "Good". There’s one 30 pages long on Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis.  This one got an “A” along with the professor’s wish that I had added a little more.  I’m sorry doctor but 30 pages of typing stretched the limits of my sanity.  I can’t even imagine using a typewriter now, even the electric ones with the correction ribbon.  My head pounds and my nerves fray just thinking about those tedious nights tapping away, my temper shortening with each mistake and every passing hour as late night turned to early morning and the paper a slog with no apparent end in sight.  Going through the stack; The Decline of Slavery in Barbados; Root Causes of the Texas Revolt; Witchcraft in Salem; and a few book reports on various Shakespearean plays.  All of them are pilloried in red ink by professors who seemed to find no value in my work until the last page; “A”; Good.  

Another drawer.  Some old passports.  A TWA boarding card for a flight to St. Louis.  Do they still use those cards?  How old was the card?  Trans World Airlines ceased to exist in 2001 after being a stalwart since 1925.  One small drawer is full of NBA basketball cards.  These must be old.  It’s been years since I paid any attention to the NBA.  I thumb through the cards looking for one of any value but I already know that there is no Jordan or Magic among them.  All humpties as my friend Scott would call then.  When I'm in need of a bookmark I go to that little drawer and pull one from the roster.

There are old driver’s licenses, expired credit cards, a couple of pocket knives, keys that open the front doors of houses we long ago left or padlocks long lost. And a hand grenade.  Yes, a hand grenade.  When I was a kid the foreman for the contractor my mom worked for gave me a hollowed out practice grenade.  From a back corner of one drawer I pull some antiquities of technologies gone by; some 3 ½” floppy disks, an ink cartridge from an electric typewriter and the prize relic of all; a slide rule or as my dad used to call it, a slip stick.  I fiddle with it a little and try some basic math functions to see if I remember how to use it.  One math class that I had actually had a short unit on slide rules but I can’t remember what grade that would have been.   

In one of the desk’s cubbies is an envelope with pictures of Phantom; the Gordon Setter we got when my kids were still in grade school. I made the hours long drive north with my daughter from the Bay Area to a breeder in Middletown near the Clear Lake area.  At 8 weeks old I easily carried Phantom in one arm.  He grew into a big boy of 80 pounds and somehow shared a single bed with our son until Matthew went away to college at which point he roomed with Cora and I.  When he got to be 10 years old Phantom developed health problems and we had more than a few visits to the Emergency Vet Clinic.  Late one night when I was in a room down the hall my wife came out of our bedroom, “Paul, Phantom is looking for you. I think he’s dying.”  I came down the hall and Phantom came slowly out of the room.  We met in the middle of the hall and I sat on the floor.  Phantom laid next to me and in the next instant, was gone.  I remember I stroked his head and quietly said, “Oh Phantom.”  He was taken by animal control the next day. The officer helped me carry Phantom to the truck and then gave me a few moments.  I clipped some of Phantom’s hair and said goodbye.  I look through the envelope and find the plastic baggie with the black and tan locks and the tears well up.  There are other pictures of Phantom that bring me back from that night and bring back a smile.  The pug nosed puppy curled up on a bed of towels; the big boy "biting" at bubbles coming up from the pool jets; tearing into an over sized bone amidst a pile of Christmas wrapping.

A stack of running logs is tucked away under the cubbies.  They date back to 2000; I was 47, my kids still in high school.  I thumb through the pages of the oldest log.  Reading the entries I see a runner; but he doesn’t resemble me; at least not as I am now.  Mileages of 16, 18 and 20 miles.  Training paces hovering around 7 minutes per mile and very few mentions of injuries.  Boy, are those days long gone. 

There’s a Garmin Forerunner; a GPS device that captures mileage, elapsed time and pace.  It was an award from the American Diabetes Association for raising 3000 dollars.  I probably used it once or twice before tossing it on the desk as you might a piece of junk mail.  When it comes to running I’m old school; don’t need that crap. 

Sports memorabilia is scattered throughout different drawers.  A photo of Sandy Koufax mailed to me with a Pittsburgh postmark.  From the looks of the faded handwriting it looks like Koufax addressed it himself.  Something to pass the time between games with the Pirates I suppose.  A ticket stub from the 1994 NFC Championship Game.  I went to that game with my son and my friend Rick.  At our tailgate we feasted on Dungeness crab and grilled steak before the 49ers feasted on the Cowboys 38 - 28.  A few years later Rick drifted from my life and I often wonder what became of him.  I thought about him during the recession when I was certain that he’d hit hard times.  He was a salesman by trade; selling home improvements.  The downturn sucked the juice right out of that market.  In the bottom of one drawer is a 49er yearbook with a young Joe Montana on the cover; mid-eighties.  In the back of another drawer is a baseball autographed by the 1962 Giants.  At a game that year I’d harangued my parents endlessly for a souvenir and when they gave in I chose the ball.  Good choice; those are real signatures and not laser reproductions.

Letters recall friends and relations and cords that for some reason, probably laziness and the ignorance that I would one day regret that laziness, were cut.  I come across a bundle of letters.  Three are from my aunt Luciana written in the early 90s.  Luciana lived in a flat on Viale Carnaro on the outer fringes of Rome.  I read through the letters written in Luciana’s excellent English.  She was a favorite of my mother’s likely because Luciana was always the rational arbiter of family squabbles some of which became very bitter.  Luciana was a classy, dignified lady; very proper.  In some ways I was a little intimidated by her because she had a keen moral compass and never failed to issue a firm but kindly worded admonishment when one was warranted.  I’m certain that she has passed after all these years and the world is a poorer place for it.  The letters are a sad reminder that I’ve lost all touch with my Italian family.  The uncles and aunts are all gone.  My cousins were all older than I.  They smoked, enjoyed life, ate well, too well, the big traditional Italian meals and I imagine many paid the price in the long run.  Heart attacks were not uncommon.  I don’t know any of my cousin’s children.  The cord has indeed been cut.

Four letters from Cora, sent in the fall of 1980.  We broke up, in, what was it, August of that year?  She packed up and moved to the L.A. suburb of West Covina.  Moved in with a cousin.  I’d pretty much given up on the relationship until a letter arrived from Cora.  I don’t even remember if I responded.  I was torn between asking her to move back north to civilization and marry me and wishing that she would simply go away.  In my late twenties, I wasn’t quite ready to grow up; a grown man mired in adolescence.  Wanted my freedom and a ball and chain and a bunch of little balls (kids) weren’t in my immediate plans. And while I tried to push her out of my mind I couldn’t keep the Friday evenings at her apartment from invading my thoughts; her scent; the way she looked in those long slinky gowns she wore; cuddling in a vinyl beanbag and watching, or pretending to watch, TV. 

Her letters seem to mirror the same torn feelings that I had; listing in logical chapter and verse every reason why we should simply break off yet telling me she missed me.  In one letter she tells me about job opportunities in Los Angeles (as if I’d even move to what I’d considered a hell hole).  In another she tells me that as far as our relationship goes “you are not obligated for anything.”  The envelope contains a picture that she sent me.  Wearing oversized glasses, chic when the photo was taken, and a short bobbed haircut.  It’s the picture of what caught my eye and my heart over thirty years ago.  I flip the picture over; Sept. 21, 1980   Dear Paul, I wish you would love me as much as I love you.  Cora.  Five months later almost to the day, the questions were answered, the matters were settled; we got married.  And as Cora would attest, I wouldn't leave my adolescence for years to come.

There’s an old saying, “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”  A stranger happening to find this desk might sort through it and, but for the sports memorabilia and the Garmin find it to be a big pile of junk.  For me there’s meaning in almost everything.  Even those old business cards bring back memories of former co-workers and a realization of how things have changed.  The purchase order that these days I launch on email with a mouse click used to entail a long phone call followed up by a snail mailed hard copy confirmation.  It also reminds me that business has become less personal.  I used to put a voice to a name and now I often don’t even have the association of a voice.  These things remind us not only of our own lives and how they've changed but how the world has changed; new technologies, new mores; new but not always better. 

We all have old oak desks in some form or another; a closet, an attic, a garage workbench.  We look at it and toss out something like, “I’ve got to sort through that junk,” as if it’s a simple matter of throwing things in a big green bag for the trash man to take. And then we go through them and discover that many of these things represent our lives at various stages.  Some things are easy to chuck even if they do bring back memories; that ICF pin, the business cards, those NBA player cards.  The job that we imagined would take only the better part of an hour stretches into a pensive afternoon of remembrance; some regrets, some smiles, some laughter and even sharing.   During the course of combing through the drawers I showed my son and his wife old pictures from their high school days.  They laughed at their hairstyles, the clothes they wore and reminisced a bit.  My son took with him two passports from when he was a small child.  Over the coming years (and I trust there’ll be many), the cycle will repeat.  I’ll collect things; put them somewhere and then have to sort through them again.  The collection will eventually become smaller and smaller and then one day it will be up to my children to do the sorting.  And they’ll reminisce and decide what to keep and what to part with.  I wonder how long that brass U.S. pin will remain with the collection; one that of the cold necessity of space will become smaller as the cycle repeats.