By Virginia Walters

For the Peninsula Clarion

I spent some time this past month rereading past columns, mostly looking for topics I wrote about in May to see if there was a trend for this time of year. There is not. The columns go back to 2006 and May was pretty diverse.

My hard drive is similar to the crawl space under the house. If you know where to look, (or have the time to browse) you can find anything. I have changed computers a couple of times in that period, and dumped the hard drive each time onto the new one. I do have folders, and folders inside folders, so it is not completely disorganized but, like the crawl space, it takes some time to navigate the main super structure. But I digress …

I did find a May 2007 column about the post office and the time it took for a letter, mailed in Kenai, to be delivered to me, a mile away from the post office. Ten days!!! That was about the time all mail started going to Anchorage as the central posting point. While that particular problem has been solved, for the most part, 14 years later we still are complaining about the slow mail delivery and cuts in service.

In 2013 we apparently had a miserable May. I even used the quote “no winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn” as a title for the June column. I was expecting more weather stuff. Because this year has been such a conglomeration, I thought maybe I was just forgetting as we have a habit of doing from year to year. Right now, I’m wondering where the leaves are but true to form the daffodils and crocuses are above ground, and the rhubarb is showing its color. By the time this column hits the paper I expect we’ll have green grass and budding trees. At least I hope so.

I mentioned my granddaughters a lot in various contexts, from hockey and soccer to weddings and camping. That was before being talked about by Grandma was a no-no (“Everybody knows it’s me-e-e-e!”) These days they all have lives and are too busy to do anything cute or funny or even controversial. Any one of them would probably like to do something worth being commented on by Grandma in “the paper.” Now they all live vicariously through great-grandson. Is that Karma or what, giving up the attention to the next generation?

And I talked about my Grandma at least once a year. She was a definite power in my life and I quoted her wisdom more than once. I still think of her almost everyday usually doing something she taught me to do or remembering some lesson she very wisely passed on to me. I can only hope my granddaughters remember me with as much awe as I do my grandmother.

Of course, politics came up at least once a year. And all the same: the state Legislature not accomplishing anything in 120 days on the budget, oil and PFD (not necessarily in that order). And the Feds trying to do too much to our state. Didn’t seem to matter which party or which personality. As I reread some of my rants, I thought I had written them yesterday. And 24/7/365 for way too many years.

I did a lot of remember when-ing, some cooking, and lots of general chit-chat. You can maybe see why I don’t tackle clearing the crawl space. If it were a matter of crawling in and pitching stuff out the opening, we’d be there (well, maybe the crawling in part would take some time) but I’d get bogged down with the big box of books I know is there. Too old to donate to a book sale, but someone, someday will want to read one of them, so I can’t throw them away. The vinyl records are next, and the phonograph that will play them, IF it had a new needle. Can’t toss those because they are coming back as the only pristine way to hear good music (Johnny Cash, young Willie Nelson, Sons of the Pioneers, etc). The trunk full of Christmas decorations against the back wall needs to be moved up front so we can reach it easily and return the big box of decorations we took out and now store under the bed so we don’t have to get into the crawl space. And there’s the old cedar chest I bought at a garage sale and use to store the quilts, finished and unfinished that I brought from Grandma’s back closet (same function as a crawl space) when we had to clear her house.

You understand the process. Lucky I have a big hard drive, and still some room in the crawl space. This could go on for another 15 years.