That Snows the Goat

I was cleaning up some boxes of papers that have been moved at least 4 times without being opened. I can tell by the number of layers of tape and the various crossed out instructions for the movers. The obsolete destinations like “1st bedroom, upstairs” and “basement” are dead giveaways as to what houses these cardboard containers have resided.

The contents were packed with varying degrees of care, with some looking like a trashcan was dumped in and accidentally moved instead of being thrown out. I was rescuing important papers from one of these when I pulled out a little blue folder with “My Life” stenciled on the cover with this picture glued to the front:

I was talking to my brother last night and he was telling me about the soldering gear they have at his workplace. He works in electronics, and was getting his shop squared away when he discovered a can of flux labeled “not for use on electronic equipment.” That got us talking about being taught to solder by our father. I’m not going into that process, because that’s not the primary point.

I’m going to enter a writing contest, 2006 Carolina’s Wisteria Prize for Memoir Writing I’ve never entered my work anywhere before, and have only had it reviewed by my teacher and classmates in my memoir class, and my wife. Not exactly an unbiased set of reviewers.

Wish me luck.

The earliest car I can remember is our Woodland Green 1953 Chevrolet. It had a three speed transmission, with the shift lever on the steering column. This was called “three in the tree” back then. The only other transmission option was an automatic, and back then only women and lazy guys had those. It was a basic car, only used by my father to drive to and from work. It was equipped with the 108-h.p. Thrift-King engine and the standard Synchro-Mesh Transmission. It had no radio, or power steering, too expensive for a service man’s pay. I don’t believe there were any other options available for this car. Key-turn starting, heavier body and frame and one-piece windshield were new features for that year.