My old telephone directory!

One of the last things I packed when we moved to Florida was the telephone book. I might need it!

Well, it's been 20 years now and my life has changed a lot and so has the info in the phone book. Two decades of decayed and yellowed pages of the people I once had daily interchange with.

Now it's a phone call and Christmas cards...and as the years melt into one another...it seems like light years away.

I believe I have grown in ways since we left. In other ways we were important people in our town especially to little boys and girls who wanted toys.

I don't need this book any longer. I can get all this information on my computer in a second.........anybody's number and address.

Progress has intervened and I just love it.

Why am I having qualms about ditching it. It's one of the last things I have left from New Kensington, Pa. other than my memories.

After my father moved to Florida, he would go over all the businesses in the downtown area...and he recalled them all. I didn't realize it then, but it was a memory test of his.

Now I find myself doing exactly the same thing....just thinking and remembering. It wasn't all that beautiful or great...but it was where I grew up...my childhood....my young married life.

Now I'm donating it to solid waste management...maybe it can be recyled into more paper...maybe it can enter this century.

I'm letting go.......