Trophies

This was uncovered during yesterday's clean-up. Every year at the neighborhood pool on July 4th, they'd have games for the kids. This is Josh and his best friend after the pie eating contest. He is 13 I think.

Google plus altered another of my ice shots of Lake Michigan. I think it looked better in color

The clean up is not  going well. There is just too much stuff. And is Steve helping, he who insists on this move? No, not one bit. He sat staring at football games while I ran to and fro.

Josh came over to take down the shrine with Naomi helping. He threw a bunch away, loaded up a few boxes, took only one away leaving the room in a disarray and he left saying he'd be back today.

So the trophies are mostly gone. Some of Naomi's remain. She wondered what I did with her swimming ribbons. A bag of them, along with all of her swimming stuff was found in a bag in Josh's closet. The rubber caps had morphed into crispy, sticky globs. Rubber based goggles turned crunchy but the silicon ones, expensive, are still good. The ribbons were all wrinkled so she spent an hour ironing them between damp towels.

She was a good age group swimmer but after a while, she quit swimming to concentrate on other sports, too many sports...softball, soccer, volleyball and basketball. By the end of high school, she was only playing basketball. Along the way, she got lots of trophies. Josh mostly played soccer though he would have been an excellent basketball player. He was the high school teams most valuable player. He also did well on his travel team (it traveled all over).

At some point yesterday, he realized that this stuff will take up too much space at his house. Complicating matters is that his mother-in-law is moving and left all of Julie's stuff with them. He asked if he could have a corner in our new basement. Now his basement is much bigger than most people have, at least 1500 square feet. This was pointed out to him. But my new basement will be even bigger.....

And I need this stuff out now. The realtor comes in just a few days and I want to be able to put stuff in closets. I spent time going through Shanna's old room getting stuff for her to make a decision about today. I did take Steve's chemistry books off the shelves to make room for my photobooks. I didn't throw his books away though I'd really like too. He is not parting with anything which drives me crazy. Files and files of investment stuff, most of it quite old and all IMHO useless. A huge notebook with all his race tags neatly encased in plastic sleeves. As he is very neat, I guess you can't call him a hoarder but a 'collector'. When I complain about a given item, he says that it hardly takes up any space at all and then reminds me about how much space we'll have. He has hidden the broken 1969s plug-in calculator that someday will be worth something (I bet not) so I can't throw it away again.

I do have my own trophies: racquetball, running, triathlons..They are in some box somewhere that I have not unearthed. Probably in the laundry room which is a place I haven't touched yet. I have one trophy out, a beautiful raku cup given to me for placing third in my age group in the Big Ten (a ten mile race). It was a big race and I was proud to have done so well.

Why do we cling to these trophies? I guess they are reminders that we were once good at something.

Below: My BigTen trophy