toss me not

 Getting rid of things is hard for me

    I am not a hoarder.  But I am a sentimentalist.  And that's the problem.

    I have a Cubs shirt that says "we're done hibernating'". It's from the 22015 season when they went to the NL championship series but lost.  The shirt has a hole under one arm, maybe because my BO is pretty strong, or  because it's 9 years old.

    I wear the shirt at night.  I also wear my World Series Champs shirt at night.  I used to wear them as everyday t shirts, but they got old and cruddy looking.  So. they became night shirts.  After 8 or 9 years, you would think I could. toss them.  

    But I can't.  Jackie, John, Dan and I were at the 2015 game against the Cardinals when Schwarber hit a towering home run that damaged the Budweiser sign in right field.  We had parked at the remote lot, but the buses that ran from Wrigley to the remote lot had to be rerouted because of the crowds in the street and the celebration that was going on.

    We pushed Jackie, in her walker, from Addison to Irving.  It was a hot night and we took turns.  People that were total strangers even offered to push.

    And then in 2016, the only time in our lives we have called the Cubs World Champions.

    I can't toss the shirts.  The memories are too strong and too happy    .

    But what about this?

        It's a face cloth.  The figure in the corner is a rooster.

        I still use it. It isn't the best face cloth, but it does the job.

        In 2013 we rented a villa in Tuscany.  Julia, Emily, Jackie, Me, John/Johanna,  Carl and Ruth, Kathy and John were all there at some point.

        We hired a woman to come in and cook a traditional Tuscan meal, and she even made the pasta while we watched.  It was so good, we had her a second time the following week.

        We drank a lot of wine, laughed, ate, and had a fantastic time exploring the area.

        I had read about a butcher there, nicknamed the Butcher of Panzanno.  We went to his shop for some meat.  Opera was playing, grappa was being passed out, he was singing, and it was full of tourists.  It was great.

    We even had a meat dinner, featuring 5 courses of various meats served family style.  We ate gelato.  I peed on the sacred walls of Sienna.  We visited Pisa and several other small towns.

    When we got home I wrote a story about the butcher and submitted it to the Tribune travel section.

    My brother called and asked me if I had seen the paper and the story of the butcher.  I said I hadn't.  He started reading it to me and telling me is was just like we were there.  I asked him who. the writer was.

    I heard his laugh and his "for god's sakes" when he saw my name.

    So....what does that have to do with the old, faded, cruddy looking washcloth?

    The villa we were in, like most rentals in Europe, did not provide face cloths.  Only towels.

    So I bought a face cloth at a store in one of the towns.

    The rooster is a symbol of the area.  Wines that come from this area all have the rooster image on the bottle so you know it is a true Tuscan wine.

    Toss it? 

    Never, because I'll be tossing memories too.  And I want to hold on to those as long as possible.

Peace and Love