STAPLES IN THE SANDS OF TIME...

I decorated my back room recently.  I say 'recently',

but it actually took me about 29 years to start it, and then

it was months of hanging a couple of strips of wallpaper every

few weeks 'til it was finished.  Because of a medical condition,

I tire easily, and I just didn't have the stamina to apply myself

to the task with any energy or enthusiasm.  Therefore, it was

a bit here and there when I could.  And I was absolutely

knackered at the end of it, let me tell you.

The room used to be my brother's, mainly, when we

stayed here the first time around.  I say 'mainly' because

we shared it for quite a few months when my room suffered

from damp during the winter months, and there was a period

when we swapped for a while, so the room was 'officially' mine

as well.  As regular readers will know (and lost the will to live

at my continual re-telling), we flitted to another house after

eleven years, then moved back (sans brother) four-plus

years later.  Along with my old room, I also comman-

deered my brother's former sleeping quarters.

Yeah, big deal, you say, get to the point.  Well, while I

was in the long, slow, arduous process of trying to hang a

few strips of wallpaper, I found staples embedded in various

spots in the walls, where my brother had affixed all his heavy

metal posters back in the '70s.  I decided to leave them there

(after flattening them into the wall with a hammer), as, having

been there for more than 40 years, I didn't have the heart to

remove them.  Long after I'm less than a memory, these old

staples will likely still be there, a permanent testament to

the fact of my family's presence in this house down

through the decades.

I've touched on this subject before, but it amazes me

to think that we always leave our mark on wherever we've

lived, even if we don't realise it at the time.  When I revisted

a former house sixteen years after having moved away , I was

astonished by just how many 'markers' of our time there yet re-

mained.  Wallpaper, tiles, lowered ceilings, marks where fluo-

rescent lights had been, etc., it was all comfortably familiar to

me, as if we'd never been away.  And when we returned to

the house in which I now reside, our departed doggie's

scratches in the back door were there to welcome

us and remind us of our previous occupation.

We all leave our mark behind us, however trivial,

and regardless of whether we intend to or not.  What

feature of any of your former houses will testify to you

    once having lived there long after you're gone?    

Posted in: Cartoons