March 28, 2024

This Is A Memo: To Those Of Us Who Were Not Born Yesterday; In Fact, To Those Of Us Who Were Born Many, Many Yesterdays Ago.

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When my husband and I got married we lived in a 3rd floor apartment in Pawtucket. Needless to say, there was not a lot of room. Actually, all we had for storage was a long walk-in closet which we make great use of. After two years, someone told us about this great piece of land in Rehoboth. We checked it out, liked it and put in a bid. It was rejected. Two days later, it was accepted and two years after that we had our home built. We are still here, same house, same piece of land.

The house was your average ranch style, one bath, two-car garage. We had so much storage, even with two cars in that garage, it was amazing. As the years went on, we started a family. Kids got older, we accumulated more and more “stuff” and the storage shrunk. Eventually, we went to three vehicles, then four. More time passed, kids continued to get older, went to college and moved on and out. But left their “stuff” of course.

We were back to our two vehicles for quite a few years but eventually, we went down to one vehicle. So.......we filled that empty garage with more “STUFF”. After some years passed and it didn’t look like the kids were going to come and get their “stuff”, we decided to clean out and just keep what we decided was absolutely necessary. We cleaned out that empty garage and started over; stacking boxes of discarded, but important, things here and there. Some on shelves, some shoved back into the corners to make more room for more things. Things started to pile up, on higher shelves and deeper corners that were hard to reach or plow through just to get that one thing we needed. Sometimes we found it, sometimes we didn’t.

So, finally, the reason for this memo? I am in my seventies now and still working because I want to and am lucky enough to be able to. But sometimes, at work, I cannot dig out that one thing I need. I work on a computer, a very small one, but I have three, that’s right, three large monitors on my desk. I like to think of it as sort of a mini space station.

Anyway, when I can’t find what I need, or figure out how to do a certain function on the computer, or how to get back something I inadvertently lost or deleted, I call my IT guy. He is absolutely great! He helps when I need it, he does not mock me or put me down in any way and when I call myself a dummy because I don’t know something I think I should, he tells me it’s OK because “our generation” did not grow up with computers liked today’s.

And I tell him that storage area I am filling with things? It’s my brain. I know that I have stored what I need on one of those shelves or in one of those deep corners that I cannot readily get to. And I know it will come to me eventually and I will remember where it is hiding.

So this is dedicated to “us”, who have probably hidden or lost more than today’s generation ever had, and to Dillon, my great IT guy, who understands and has patience and a sense of humor as well as a great understanding of “us”.

I sincerely appreciate the time you took to read this.

Submitted by

Paula M. Boudreau

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