Reminicing

My wife and I, after 56 years of marriage, decided to do some shrinking of our cache of accumulation during those years (and even before). I discovered folders my step mother had surrendered to me dating back before I was born (1927). Some had escaped my attention and today I browsed through the box in which they were hidden for years. There were letters I had never seen even some I had written long ago.

At the same time I read a brochure which arrived in the mail lamenting the disappearing act of history by historians who tend to invent instead of discover and students who are short-circuited. My memory bank seems to be overloaded and even today's events soon grow dim but certainly not all distant events reappear.

Back in 1956, I was 29, single, and two of us decided to see the world (or a part of it). Dave, also single, had an itinerary proposed, beautifully done professionally but was way beyond our means. So, to the dismay of the agent, we canceled the plan but grudgingly he gave us the itinerary which we used. I kept a diary of sorts, and unearthed it as a guide. I bought a '56 Volkswagen for $1227.10 and we sailed round trip for $444.50 from New York to Europe.

Sure, I remembered those figures in general but was amazed when I saw what some of our daily expenses were. In Wolfsburg we each spent $2.00 for the Wolfsburger Hof hotel room, free breakfast, $1.00 for lunch and $1.25 for dinner (5 German marks). A few days later I spent $4.60 at the Hotel Aida for room and 3 meals – and all summer that was similar, a bit lower or higher.

I did remember some highlights but the handwritten diary revealed so much more as I clumsily scribbled precise figures which sound absurd today. Then I read some eye-openers. We went to the Casino for a Pop Concert. Very good music, all classical plus a dance team & trampoline experts from Paris (my scribbling). There's more. We stopped for gas (in Italy) but they wouldn't accept American Express checks but we scraped up some leftover Franks (@$16) and they took that. To see the Blue Grotto Capri, we spent $1.60 (plus 30 cents to park the VW) for the ferry.

I also read in that storage box a three-page single page typed letter to my father which I had long forgotten and his hand-written response. I discovered a picture of my mother before she married my father in 1925 and a picture of her brother, both professionally done in sepia (redish brown) which color I used when digitalizing some of my old slides that had changed color.

So what you might say. Those are your memories. Right you are. But the moral of the story could be overlooked: Dig out that old stuff hidden who knows where and refresh your memories. It will be worth every bit of effort it will take.