Not cameras. This time anyway.

No, I've opened the big file drawers of my desk and emptied their contents onto the floor. Ugh!

It's not as easy as it once was to sit on the floor and do things. But it's about the only practical way to accomplish it.

I'm going through old correspondence, cards and letters I've saved for reasons I can't always recall. Stuff my kids would have to go through, or just toss when I die. Figured I should save them the trouble.

The good news is, I found some things I'd forgotten about and that I'm not throwing away. Some wonderful notes from my stepdaughter about me as a father. Letters from a friend who died not long ago. Letters from my parents around the time when my son was born and I was in the Arabian Gulf aboard STEPHEN W GROVES when STARK was hit. A few others.

They won't all return to the drawer anonymously filed. Some of the letters from my late friend I may share with his widow and daughters. The others will be filed with an explanatory note about what they meant to me and why they may wish to read them and decide for themselves what they might mean to them.

In the meantime, my office is a catastrophe.

I have been successful at eliminating a lot of ephemera, and it gives me some satisfaction knowing I've at least relieved them of that responsibility.

With apologies to Robert Frost...

This mess is lonely, dark and deep,

And Piles to go before I sleep.