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YESTERDAY I SPENT SOME serious time in the attic. My goal: Expurgation! The entire day I was on a rampage to clean out not only the attic, but any area of the house in which there were items no longer needed for daily life. What was made clear to me, Dear Reader, is that I have come from a long line of pack rats! Indeed, I was not only reading my father's high school report cards, I was also cleaning up the leather of my grandfather's school satchel, and perusing the account books of a great-grandfather!

I was rummaging in the attic, sweat dripping from my face. I was removing dust-covered lids of aged boxes and making small groaning sounds upon the discovery of each new (ahem, though very old) container filled with letters. It was not with exclamations of joy I was throwing off boxtops to find revealed not just papers, but toys and trinkets stashed away from generations past. Dolls. Stuffed animals. Yearbooks. Scrapbooks. Autograph books. Books. Books. Books. A tin box filled with curls. (Reader Dear, I will not sit in judgement if you're doing that eye-rolling thing).

There's no way I can escape all blame for the stacked-up condition of the attic (and various and sundry closets of this house in which my yard man and I have resided now for...lo, these many years), but heaven help me...it's so hard to throw away anything that's been stashed for nearly a century, even if merely a cancelled check!

I can't even toss in the trash this letter dated nearly a half-century ago, sent to my grandparents by an older cousin of mine. "I (want to) come see you with my new girlfriend...I asked her for a date on Nov. 20--and she was delighted!We liked each other from the first time we met--the first week of school last September," he writes. "We dated every week until early in February when I asked her to go steady. Now we are together quite often!....I took Christine home with me for my birthday on Feb. 15. My parents and little sisters really enjoyed having her there." My goodness, Dear Reader, my grandmother saved this letter for fifteen years, following which my mother saved this letter for twenty-nine years, following which...

(to be cont'd.)