I had considered titling this post “News You Need” because I am a former small-town journalist and my brain thinks that way.
But then I found out that I had missed the rapper feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Obviously, I’m not keeping up on the news. So don’t count on me for that anymore.
Veering off into left field (something I’m known for), I set journalistic intent aside and instead move to the next obvious thing: open my computer supply cabinet.
A Trip Back in Time
I like technology, and this cabinet is a treasure chest of years of technological changes.
I don’t have my Apple IIc up there (I wish I did!) but, of late, opening the door to that cabinet means a spaghetti snarl of cables and discs emerging like hungry pythons that I have to push back with my foot while I slam the door.
It’s made finding a USB charging block challenging.
I finally gritted my teeth, started pulling stuff off shelves, and found Monkey!
Monkey is a little plush monkey with a coin purse for a backpack. I carried him for years when the kids were home. Monkey marked the location of car keys and carried quarters for gum ball machines in his backpack.
Our Fellow Traveler
“Go get Monkey,” I could tell the kids, and they raced back with the fuzzy guy in their hand. He was part of our travels.
He retired when his backpack zipper split and the cord tying him to my purse broke. Maybe at the same time. He had the Velveteen rabbit look to him.
And I had saved him?
As I turned him over in my hand, the memories bubbled up from times when the kids were at home. Trips to the park. The flip house the kids and I gutted. County fairs where they showed goats and a horse. A flight to Los Angeles to visit the USS Iowa. Our laughter when the mint plants were pummeled by hail. The trees we planted together.
So many memories.
Moving On
I set Monkey aside and kept digging.
A crumpled earbud set curled in the back corner of the cabinet. Oh, yeah, I wore those on the flight we took to San Diego. We visited the zoo and Sea World and watched whales from a boat.
The 30-pin to VGA Adapter (don’t ask) pushed up to the surface as I dug around. I used it in a photography class I taught. You had to stand on your ear in those days to be sure the adapter connected the laptop to the classroom projector, but we managed and had a great time talking about photos of kids, flowers, and dogs. Sunsets, too.
Some misguided person (that’d be me) saved Apple product boxes, thinking those could help value when re-selling said product. I had a white rectangular Apple mountain on the second shelf, which made a Minecraft square-block avalanche.
The boxes don’t help resale value much, but didn’t even trigger memories. I had an iPhone X once? And an SE? An iPad Air? Some of these could have been for my husband or kids, but for some reason, I was the box keeper. I mean, Apple makes beautiful boxes. But still…
Some Old DVDs
Moving on, I found several old DVD programs on the top shelf sitting like tombstones. OLD means dinosaurs installed those programs on their Commodore 64s. Not really, but can you say Windows 98?
The shelves were an archeological dig. I had a great time remembering. Then I threw handfuls of cables and cords and disks and adapters into the trash bag.
The old computer stuff is mostly gone. (I took a couple of pictures but, really, who needs to see a 30-pin to VGA adapter?)
What about Monkey?
He’s staying. His memories are far warmer than Windows 98 and the iPhone X box.
Him and the USB-C cables. I’m not completely impractical.
