Tag: dear-old-dad

Whew! Long Day!

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

It’s been a long, long day. While my daughter and stepmother have been out shopping all day (a day shopping with Grandma, buying mostly windows, was S&F’s Chanukah present–and yes, there was a spending limit), and my wife has been traisping around buying windows as well (I hope), I’ve been busy.

The day started by preparing a leftover soup. Brisket, some spaghetti sauce with chicken, baby squash, celery, onions, greens, carrots… all in the slow cooker. Smells great.

Next, I met with one of my dad’s brokers. A very nice lady. I learned a lot about trusts, and how they work. Most importantly, I learned why I need to setup a trust and get my wills done. I checked with a few lawyers, and boy, are they expensive. One is $250/hr, and $1500 to set up the trusts and wills. The other is $275/hr, and didn’t send me (in email) the will/trust price. As before, recommendations in the Los Angeles area are welcome.

I then met with my dad’s accountant. Mostly, this was to see what I could throw out. There are now 8 boxes in the garage pending shredding. This doesn’t count my dad’s daily journals that date back to the 1950s, which I haven’t even touched yet! I also know what I’ll need to prepare with respect to a summary of assets, but it doesn’t look like we’ll reach the limit where an Estate Tax return will be triggered (which is a good thing).

Something tells me this will be a complicated tax return year coming up. Good thing I’m not my accountant!

One thing I’ll need to do is figure out what to do with a large collection of masonic and shrine materials my dad collected. For a long time, he was an active mason (32°) and later a shriner, but within the last 10 years, he demitted his membership. I’m trying to contact some folks from his old lodge to see if there are some leads on this.

I think we need a bumper sticker: Children: Don’t let your parents grow up to be packrats. Of course, one book on his bookshelf is a book on dealing with clutter.

Tomorrow, I’ll actually do some work-work from here, and then we (whew) go home! Friday night is our New Years Eve Board Gaming Party!

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Memorabilia and Debris

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I’m sitting here in my dad’s office, looking around at all the binders, and thinking about all the stuff I’ve run into. For example, I’ve found a ledger detailing his daily living expenses between 1953 and 1960. Some examples:

Mar 18 1953: 1 pr White Sneakers (Sears Roebuck): $3.74
July 10 1953: 1 pr Black Pedal Pushers: $2.98
Apr 30 1957: 1 Cashmere Sweater: $16.59
Nov 11 1955:  1 21″ TV Set: $159.95

I’ve found family holiday letters dating back to 1980. I’ve found the correspondence between my father and his 1st wives’ friends relating to her hospitalization and their divorce. Of course, I’ve got tax files for his accounting firm dating back to the mid-1980s. I’ve got loads of Navy pictures and recollections, and of course, loads and loads of Al Jolson memorabilia. I’ve written before about the mini-Office Depot. Looking in the supply closet, I can see 17 staplers, 12 calculators, 15 hole-punches of various types, boxes and boxes of staples and ACCO fasteners, multiple Dymo/Rotex labellers, numerous transistor radios, and so on.

I’ve been able to see the evolution of the man, from his younger self to the man I got to know as I was an adult (for we really don’t get to know our parents as people when we are children). I’ve seen the evidence of the times he was scared, when he had to look for work, of the trials in his life.  I’m glad that I got to know him, but now that I’ve learned his past, I wish he was here so we could talk about it.

This is something I never got to see with my mother. Because of her nature, we weren’t talking much at the time she died, and so my dad did most of the cleanup of her stuff. Thus, I never really got to know the person: I rejected knowing her when I was an adult because of our personality clashes; I didn’t know her as a child. I don’t really know her story: her trials, her successes. She really didn’t keep memoriabilia, or at least not that I know of.

My question is this: Why do we keep this stuff? What does this memorabilia (and the stuff we keep) say about us and our lives? Do we keep the stuff from the good times, the times we want to relive? I’ve found very little from the late 1960s and early 1970s, which is when my brother was older and up to his death. Was that a time my dad was trying to forget? Are all the office supplies an expression of growing up during the depression?

What does what we have at home say about our lives? When my daughter, in 50 years, has to do a dig through my stuff, what will she think? I know I have very little from my college days, although I do have stuff from the UCLA Computer Club. I have lots of stuff from camp, but practically nothing from High School. I have photos and stuff from the early days of my marriage, but little career correspondence.

We seem to carry with us a lot of debris. I’ve begun to learn that the debris only serves to slow us down. It can make it harder to move on in ones life (I think one of the reasons I don’t want to change houses is that this would mean I’d have to pack up stuff). Yet, when we throw it away, do we make it harder for our children to learn about us as people?

So: What debris and memorabilia do you have? What story would it tell? Do you find yourself consciously keeping less debris from the bad times, from your missspent youth?

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I Can See Daylight

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I’m actually starting to feel caught up. My stepmother’s Quicken is up-to-date, including the checks written today. I know where most of the stuff in the office is. We’ve done a bunch of the legal stuff, and its in the outbox ready to mail (together with talonvaki‘s CD and my mail). I’ve been a busy, busy boy.

Tomorrow, I’m meeting with the broker on the trust that was mine and my dad’s alone so we can get that figured out, and hopefully I can get my dad’s accountant over here to let me know what can be shredded from the files, as well as starting to lay the groundwork for any estate tax returns.

Of course, from all this work, my wrist is feeling tired, but keeping the wrist brace on most of the day (I can’t really write well with it) is helping the arm immensely.

I hope everyone had the happiest of holidays. As a reminder, if you’re on my friends list and you’re a board gamer in the greater Los Angeles area and you are free on New Years Eve, give me a holler in the comments.

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Digging Through The Paperwork…

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

The dig has continued, and I’ve explored most of the file cabinets. I’ve found numerous cameras, transistor radios, more staplers, more hole punches, and more and more outdated paper. Whew!

I’ve spent the afternoon entering my stepmother’s financial data into Quicken. My goal is to get her to use this, for it will give her a better idea of her financial position, and make it easier for her to reconcile checks. I’ve been using the program for *years*, and it is one of the few reasons that I keep a Windows sytem around—no Linux-equivalent comes close.

Next is going through the paperwork we need to get done: sending in death certificates on Insurance Policies, dealing with IRA accounts, and figuring out legal stuff. Ugh. This is one of the areas I’m not crazy about, especially things like Estate Tax returns, and having to get current values of all assets. That’s going to be a real bear: here I think my dad’s accountant will earn his pay… as will mine (well, mine is my father-in-law).

Back to the dig…

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Day 1 of the Dig is Done

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

It’s been a long day, helped with the dissipation of the headache around 2:00 PM. I’ve gotten my dad’s desk pretty well cleaned: only two drawers left to go. On the way, I uncovered loads and loads of stuff, some of which was a surprise. Lots of pens and pencils, to be sure, but also loads of nail clippers, swiss army knives, and miscellaneous outdated paper. But now it is a functional desk, which is a good thing.

Tomorrow, I’ll be doing a little bit in here. We’re planning to go see The Incredibles as our Holiday Movie (but heathen Orange County doesn’t have a 10:00 AM show 🙁 ), and then my stepmother is doing a holiday dinner (I explained why before). Sunday is attacking the office again, this time hopefully straightening out paperwork and getting my stepmother started on Quicken.

One thing I tend to do more of down here is cooking. I ended up making a breakfast scramble that everyone loved, as well as a chicken spaghetti sauce for dinner.

Happy holidays to those who celebrate on the 25th. To those that don’t, do what I do: go see a movie and eat Chinese food!

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The Dig Continues…

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Maybe I should have been an archeologist!

The day started yucky, with the headache still there. Luckily, it seems to now be about 98% away. I’ve been working in the office today, slowly cleaning and decluttering surfaces, seeing what I find, and what goes where. I’m finding all sorts of stuff, and the occasional interesting memory. Lots of old tax papers (he was an accountant): blank forms and journal pads get recycled; anything with sensitive stuff goes into a shred box. Still, the slow process is relaxing, in an odd sense. In many ways, I’m seeing in this a warning: don’t be a packrat!

Time to turn back to my fine-hair brush to look for the next fossil 🙂

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Get Out the Shovels and Picks, We’re In For Some Digging, Boys!

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

First: I hate headaches. I’ve been fighting one all day: a total of 4 Excedrin this morning, a Benedryl, and a T3 hasn’t yet knocked it down. Arrrgh. Perhaps a night’s sleep will help.

I’ve begun going through my dad’s office. He was a worse packrat than I thought! So far, I’ve gone through about a 3′ section on one wall. I’ve uncovered 5 heavy duty three-hole punches, 6 B-8 staplers, 4 one-hole punches, 8 stamp pads, about a gazillion pens, about 20 erasers, and about 40 CDs. Just looking around, I see about 6 portable cassette or mini-cassette recorders, about 8 magnifying glasses, multiple calculators, multiple letter openers, etc. He has well over 300 cassettes, about 200 photo albums, and could open up an office supply store with his closet. What I want to do is leave my stepmother with a functional office with functional files and a functional filing system, and all the requisite paperwork on insurance in. It’s going to take a while.

I have gotten some case files to simplify filing paid bills, and a simple network router to provide additional protection for their computer (and to make it so I can plug in my laptop).

I think I have my work cut out for me.

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It’s Going To Be an Interesting Few Days

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

A little bit later today, we’re going to be heading down to my stepmother’s for a few days. This will be the main time we’ll be spending sorting through my dad’s stuff (that’s the polite term for much of it–he was a packrat): going through the office, going through his clothes, etc. We’ll be deciding what to keep, what goes where, and so on. It should be an (ummm) interesting time, and I have no idea what I will find, other than lots and lots of memories, and probably some skeletons he never revealed to me.

It’s also going to be interesting in another way. When my dad married my stepmother, she was Jewish. At some point (I forget exactly when) she had a dream and became Christian. Now, that’s doesn’t bother me: she’s an adult, not having more kids, and is entitled to her beliefs. Why am I mentioning this? Being down there the next few days I’m going to get to experience a “Christmas Dinner”, which will be something I haven’t been to in years! We’re still going to do our holiday tradition, which is to go to a movie on Christmas morning, when everyone else is otherwise occupied.

This morning, however… I’ve got a bad sinus headache, my daughter is melting down about clothing, the house has gone from “neat” to “mess” in two days. I’ll see what I can get done before we head out around lunchtime.

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