Scattered all over America are small patches of land that have been set aside as a monument to some historical event. These spots are often marked with a placard that records important facts about that specific location. Most people would have no idea that the placard even exists, except for the occasional spot that happens to be located near a major road or highway. For those special locations, the State usually invests a few extra dollars to provide a green information sign that warns those speeding along that there is a historical marker up ahead.
Throughout my life, I have taken notice of many of those signs but have never actually stopped to read the marker. This week I traveled again along AL 231 to Dothan, AL. On this stretch of road there are several markers–and every time I pass them, I think to myself, “One of these days, I need to stop and read that marker”, but like all the other motorists, I keep speeding along and that little piece of history remains hidden.
Historical markers help us remember and without those little markers, it is possible that some event, person or location will become forgotten. I personally think that keeping memories is important. For me, a nolstalgic memory can be one of the more pleasurable things that I have access to–for that reason, I have many boxes full of mementos that are personal historical markers that allow me to revisit various points in time from my life’s history. Many people are not nearly as nostalgic as I am, they not only throw out concert stubs and souvenir cups, but they can toss out their High School yearbooks or boxes of old photographs. For those people all their memories are stored neatly away in their mind and things like yearbooks are just clutter.
For those of us that treasure links to the past, we often have a common problem… volumes of clutter around us. Some of us may be better than others at organizing the clutter, but more often than not, we have lots of crap that sits around serving no other purpose that to preserve an obscure link to some personal memory. My mom had nearly an entire garage full of them–I think the more bulky portion may have been my mom’s but a very dense, more organized, portion was also my dad’s.
This week I went down to join my sister at my parent’s house so I could visit with her and my nephews and nieces who I haven’t seen for six months. As fate would have it, it was also a time when my mom had finally agreed to let go of several hundred unimportant memories… or rather those pieces of clutter that linked her to those memories. This was an exciting event as all previous attempts to unclutter my parents garage was met with strong opposition, mostly because my mom was unrealistically concerned with losing something “important.”
Before I arrived, my sister pulled a monster Clean Sweep event, purging what could easily have been nearly 2/3rds of the volume of the garage. To ensure there was no way to re-clutter, my sister had a charity truck collecting anything that might be of value to someone else and removing it from the property on the same day. Additional items were placed on the street and were promptly snatched up as soon as the sun went down. Despite the massive purge, there was an additional purge left to do that was being left to me.
In some ways, my sister is one of those people who could throw out a yearbook or some old photos if they seemed to be more trouble to keep then they were worth. Purging my mom’s stuff was no problem for her, since the vast bulk of the junk in the garage has no memorable context for her. For me however, my job was going to be more difficult, as I have shared many memories with my dad in relation to his work, and it was his work things that I was going through.
For those that don’t know, a little over four years ago, my dad began acting strangely and started doing things that seemed out of character for him. After a troubling set of misdiagnoses by doctors and psychiatrists, it was eventually discovered that my dad was in the later stages of frontal lobe dementia–he was only 64. As life would have it, this form of dementia was eventually going to rob my dad of all his memories.
It can be sad knowing that my dad’s entire history is gone with the exception of those memories held in common by family, friends and personal effects. As I am the sibling who is most familiar with my dad’s work, and it was determined that I was to go through the large volumes of my dad’s things and get rid of anything that had no personal value. I worked with my dad quite a bit over the years and when I wasn’t working with him or around him, I talked with him at length about the projects he was working on. For me, it was difficult to throw out things that were the only lasting links to many fond memories that I have, especially being that my dad is no longer the keeper of these memories and knowing, as well, that I am now the sole keeper of a large portion of my dad’s work history–especially since much of what now occupies some small spot in the Dothan City dump, is the last physical link to many of those memories.
Even though there was enough purged to fill the back of my truck, I didn’t throw anything out that can be appreciated by anyone other than me. There were many documents and technical schematics that have been archived. I kept anything that contained something representative of him and his work, but there were many things that no one shared with him beside me. Many of the documents were small personal historical markers pointing me back to a place and time in history; now the last physical link to many of those memories are gone.
As I drove back to Nashville, I passed several markers and continued to wonder what event they may try to remind us of–a Civil War battle or maybe the location of some important Alabama milestone? At one point along my drive, I passed a sign that read, “Historical Marker — 1500 feet.” I entertained ,for a split second, the possibility of stopping and reading the marker; only my mind began spinning and I never noticed the marker some 1500 feet later because my thoughts were back at the Dothan city dump where I deposited a whole host of my own personal historical markers.
I realize that once we collectively forget our history, it vanishes forever–but our whole life is a history and to create markers for every little event in our life would leave our highways and byways cluttered with tiny placards. I am beginning to think that is important to choose my monuments carefully; cluttering my life with pile of minor memories can become so demanding that few new quality memories are being created–the vast majority of my life has become so focused on serving small nostalgic memories of the past and not seeking opportunities to create new more memorable ones.
For the first time since moving to Dothan, my mom can now pull her car into the garage. Sure it was painful for her to part with her stuff, but the value of the freedom is so much more enjoyable. It is sad to see the ravages of dementia on my father, but as far as I can tell, it only bothers us–he seems rather content to be where he is at, with all of his current limitations. Having lost his memories of the past seems to have created the ability to deal with the reality of his new life without sorrow or regret. Maybe along the road of his new simple life, no longer cluttered with the memories of better times, exists a single historical marker which simply reads, “You are here.”
