My office -- my father

I'm looking around my office and I'm thinking -- my father. I have become my father.

My dad, in his later years, had so much stuff that it gradually piled up all over the house so that there was a path from the front door to the back door, and into the bathroom and bedroom. All other floor and furniture top space was covered with stuff. I've talked about his collections before.

Well, my office has become my father's house. It's the Christmas room, and it's piled high with presents that need to be wrapped, projects for the grandchildren at our Christmas get togethers. Not to mention the Creative Memories left overs. At least that pile (the CM pile) won't get any bigger. Since it is a small room, it fills up fast.

I'm looking at the bookcase I have in the office, the one, small bookcase. It was the bookcase that my father had next to his captain's chair in the living room. It's as jam packed with books now as it was when dad had it. Two levels deep on each shelf... The books are all hardbacks, most of them are antiques. Most of them, in fact, were given to my father in the early 1900s by his own father and mother and are inscribed as such gifts. That really makes them special.

Once in a while I'll pull one out and read a story or a few poems or even the whole book and try to think what it was like to be a boy reading such literature.

I'm hoping someone gives me a complete set of Jane Austin for Christmas -- leather bound, of course. That's a pretty expensive gift, so I'm not going to hold my breath, but it would be nice. I have not one single book written by Jane Austin, yet I love her stories. And, I would like to read them for myself, not watch them on PBS.

Ugh! The room is eating me up and I'm going to be gobbled up by the debris any minute now. I'd better get out of here before that happens.

ttfn