Riches Come and Riches Go

I’ve been trying to sort through things that have accumulated, old receipts, old checkbooks, odds and ends of information, and the like. I’ve been tossing them into a two chamber egg crate until it was more than overflowing. I thought I might leave a trail and a chore for my kids to follow once I decided to shuffle off this mortal coil, but finally decided to leave them a much cleaner slate to deal with. When I reach the bottom of the storage box, I may have an idea exactly how many years I have been hoarding all of these records. I know the initial reason I’ve stored receipts was for proof of paid bills. I was told it was necessary to keep records for three years, but once the three years were up, I had no desire to root through the pile of accumulated paperwork. The papers will help heat my house this winter.

Among the massive pile of printed material were Christmas, thank you, birthday, and get well cards. I found a few old calendars that I’d saved for a friend who likes to take inspiration from photos to use as she paints. Delving through each layer of paperwork was like opening Pandora’s Box. One thing I found was a note to my wife Cindy from her students telling her to get well. This was before she was hospitalized and died from ovarian cancer, but the poignancy of the recognizable names and sentiments still reopened old wounds.

I started to write this blog about something that I found buried in the remaining stack of papers, but if I only told what that item was, I wouldn’t have been able to write a full blog. So I wanted to share my experience of wading through all of the flotsam that I’d collected over the years. In an envelope I discovered a check that hadn’t been cashed. It was for a sizeable amount, but it was issued January 20, 2022 and not valid after 120 days. I was shocked. I called the company and after I was transferred to several people, I found the reason I’d not cashed it was that the check was from my retirement fund. Because of Federal mandates, I was required to take money from that account. It happened years previously requiring me to pay taxes on the withdrawal. I decided to have the money sent directly to my church telling Uncle Sam to keep his paws off my money. I’d forgotten I donated it. So I wrote void across the check and tossed it into the burn pile.