Page 34 - voices-2023-03

GLEANINGS FROM THE GROVE
What’s in a Name?
Paul C. Fanning, DTM
I have spent the last month doing my pre-spring
house cleaning. Sound like fun? Well, to tell you
the truth, yes, and no. Yes, because I make the hard
decisions regarding “stuff” I have accumulated in
the past year or two or forever. No, because the
OCD in me keeps saying that “you might want
to keep that for a use in the future,” knowing
full well that I will never get around to using it
or needing it. Take for example the two boxes of
family photographs and albums of movie tickets,
play bills, and various letters that have been
accumulating for three generations and remain
unsorted for years. I finally gathered the courage
and strength to tackle them this year. With the
box lids off, they suddenly looked undaunting
and a brief shudder of the “you will not get to
me this year” resounded in my brain. But then I
espied a subject I knew so well—pictures of me.
On the boat/liner to New York and America from
England, including the amusing one of me in a life
ring with the name of the ship stenciled upon it.
Then school photographs of me in the 1960’s, my
“career” as a Cub Scout, then Boy Scout, and finally,
as a fireman. Some were Polaroid pictures, that like
my mind, had once been clear and sharp, colorful
and vibrant, that were now blurry, dull, and fading
away. Scads of pics of people I did not know, or
who were not labeled, relatives I was assured of, but
34 ONE COMMUNITY
now nameless smiling faces in party hats, smoking
a fag and/or sipping a drink. Surely this was not
from my grandmother’s family, the tee-totaling
crowd from Devon and Cornwall they were, but
from my grandfather’s vast London family. The
box’s inhabitants were any time from the 1890's to
1950's period. I have been in contact with cousins
in Australia, Canada, and the motherland—those
few who did not emigrate elsewhere after World
War II to provide them originals or copies. Now
they only want scans, which means my photos do
not diminish in number.
Then I “found” (for they were never “lost” in the
first place) numerous birthday cards, anniversary
cards, and wedding announcements as well. It was
in one of the later dated packets of my vintage
that my eye caught my name on the envelope,
the letters “C of C” and no return address nor
postage stamp or post mark, meaning it had been
hand delivered. (If you are under 30 years of age,
in the pre-technological eras one actually sent
HANDWRITTEN letters and cards to friends
and family for events and thank-yous.) Inside
was a nice congratulations card dated 1971 from
a neighbor and resident in Dutch Flat Stella Pauw.
It was when I had become an Eagle Scout, and she
was bestowing upon me the sobriquet “Collector
of Collections” for adding yet another “collection”