More fragments...

Today's piece of the past consisted mostly of my stepdad's stuff, including a number of sample drawings he'd done for various employers over the years. The drawings—the ones I bothered to open and look at—meant nothing to me, although all of them were pretty complex. Some had been in storage in the basement for so long that something—I'm not quite sure what—had eaten holes through the more easily accessible portions of the paper.

In the afternoon, Galina and I went to IKEA again, and it occurred to me that the route we travel was probably the same route my old man drove to visit his favorite store, Sears. For it was a Sears that he bought all of his Craftsman tools, including the small screwdriver that Rex, the pedigreed German Shepherd my dad bought in the spring of my junior year of high school, had thoroughly chewed the handle of.

I recall Rex did not live long, succumbing to that arthiritis of the hip that afflicts so many purebred Shepherds. I still recall how red-eyed my dad was when he returned from the vet without Rex. I came to know that soul-wrenching sorrow later, when I took our dear Max on that one-way trip to the vet's, and I guess the main difference between me and my dad is that for me, the joy of having a dog as part of our life is worth the inevitable loss of that companion.

Then again, maybe I underestimate the depth of how much my dad loved that dog. Heck, his small red cardboard box of mementos I found after his death, which contained pictures of that which had been dear to him through his life, contained quite a number of photos of Rex. (Presumably, the reason neither I nor my mother appeared in any of the photos—an observation, not a complaint—was because, well... we were here and underfoot, so to speak. At least, that's my working hypothesis.)

Cheers...

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