Cleaning house!

"If you can't use it, lose it."

— Tony Blasi

AUBURN — I have always led a Spartan life and have lived by my own motto: "If you can't use it, lose it."

And I tend to lose it every spring when I go on a tear and clean out closets full of crap that ends up in a recycling bin or handed off to Goodwill, hoping my trash becomes somebody's treasure. 

If there is any way I can avoid sending my spring-cleaning relics to the dump, I will give it away or leave it on Goodwill's doorstep. Right now, we are down to one bag of trash a week, and the rest our waste ends up in a recycling bins or in my vegetable garden. I used to hold a yard sale, but it was too labor intensive and a damn hassle.

Becoming a pack rat and cluttering my home with stuff that eventually becomes an obstacle course has never entered my mind. Getting rid of useless things that usually occupy valuable living space in my modest, three-bedroom home gives me a sense of accomplishment and offers me some breathing room.

If I suddenly found myself joining the richest four percent even though I have no such aspirations, I would live the same frugal life. I would travel more, but owning a large home or an expensive vehicle seems absurd to me. Who would I want to impress and why would I give a damn about impressing anyone with my sudden wealth.

If a fat wallet impresses people, then the cost is too high to maintain a relationship with human beings who practice Gordon Gekko's creed: "Greed is good."

I can do without people who eventually become another kind of clutter in my life.

Sometimes, spring cleaning is a journey of self-discovery. Going through a closest packed with junk will sometimes yield a treasure trove of fond memories.

Last week, we emptied out a closest full of stuffed animals. Being sentimental, we kept a handful of toy creatures that meant so much to us, but the rest we shipped off to Goodwill. It was impossible to part with the stuffed animals that I won at carnivals for my son.

Going through the closest also gave me a chance to rediscover some of my mother's prized possessions — old Life magazines and a Revere Journal supplement celebrating Revere Beach's 100-year anniversary. It was published in 1996.  The beach was her second home and I can see why she saved a copy of Revere Beach's anniversary.

I read the entire supplement and couldn't help think about my mother (she died four years ago) who valued the written word and always found newspapers enlightening and worth the 50 cents to read them.

I started reading old Christmas and birthday cards that have piled up in a cloth bag. I refused to put them in a recycling bin. They are from people who passed on, but my memories of them remain strong, and I'll am not eager to cut my ties with the past, so the cards will stay in the closet.

I will throw anything away that no longer serves a purpose in my brief life, but letters, articles and books from my past will forever occupy space in my home.

That's the law at 53 Valley Street.

The letters are like a recorded history of my childhood, the marriage to my wife, Terri, the miraculous birth of my son, Anthony and the death of countless people who I loved. The old magazines are also like another timeline of my life.

So the letters, articles and cards stay, and everything else goes. After all, in the end when I become old and frail, all I will have are wonderful memories, and that new TV won't mean a damn thing to me as my life comes to a close.

My year in review

"Maybe when you go back, Martin, you'll find that there are merry-go-rounds and band concerts where you are. Maybe you haven't been looking in the right place. You've been looking behind you, Martin. Try looking ahead."

                       — Dialogue from the Twilight Zone episode  "Walking Distance"

AUBURN, Maine — I discovered a worn Christmas card at the bottom of a box used for storing our treasure trove of holiday ornaments.

The thoughtful card was from my dad who is engaged in a cruel battle with Alzheimer's — a disease of the brain that dissolves memories and renders all human beings stricken with it helpless.

I opened the card and read the inscription: "Have a great holiday. We love all of you."

I know it wasn't his handwriting because he can no longer hold a pen, but it was something he would say to all of us each Christmas. He has always been a man of few words, but his loyalty and integrity is beyond reproach.

Of course, reading the card stirred all those memories of my mom and dad. My parents are no longer together. My mom passed three years ago, leaving us all with an emptiness that never goes away. Big Al still has home-run moments of lucidity, but there are other instances when it is impossible for him to speak in complete sentences.

I admire people who take down the Christmas tree and pack all those ornaments away the day after the holiday and move on to the next year without batting an eye. I look forward to the future, but I often find myself looking over my shoulder for the past.

The week between Christmas and New Year's Day is like purgatory for me. I am relieved the holiday has passed, but bundling up all that holiday cheer in plastic tubs and placing them on the cold cellar floor leaves me melancholic. I know another year has past that was filled with great moments in our lives. These memories have been recorded in photographs or on video clips.

I have been lucky to experience these moments that come so fast and furious and disappear so quickly before I can savor them.

That's why a camera comes in handy.

I am not a prisoner of my past, but I am a sentimental fool when it comes to my family.

This was my week to review a year that gave me hope but was also tinged with despair. 

Isn't that always the way in life?

Philadelphia Freedom

We threw caution to the wind and hopped in a souped-up, red Chevy Impala and cut across seven states for a 1,300-mile joy ride that took us all the way to Philadelphia and Gettysburg. My 17-year-old son served as our on-board navigator and acted as a chaperon for his two loving parents who acted like two crazy kids.

During our voyage to the City of Brotherly Love, we visited:

@ The Independence Sea Port Museum

@ The Liberty Bell (Did you know there is a crack in it? Really, there is!)

@ Independence Hall (It gave me a new appreciated for my founding fathers and strengthened my disdain toward a pathetic Congress.)

@ The Borse (Philadelphia's version of Faneuil Hall in Boston)

@ The Olympia (Admiral Dewey's ship that participated in the Spanish American War. I satisfied my son's dream by touring this behemoth battle wagon from the past)

@ Crossing the Susquehanna River. (We took the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Gettysburg, which is surrounded by the Allegheny Mountains)

@The Becuna (It is a World War II submarine that is docked next the Olympia.)

@ Ben Franklin's grave (We threw a few pennies on the big fellas' tombstone.)

@ Staying at the Wyndham hotel (Great people, good food and a four-stars stay as far as I am concerned.)

@Gettysburg (It was worth the 268-mile round trip from our hotel in Philly. It worth spending an entire day in 97-degree heat to check out Little Roundtop and the rest of the battle sites.)

@ Driving through Amish country (I appreciate people who live a simple life and refuse to complicate their lives with technology and greed.)

@Crossing the George Washington Bridge, seeing the World Trade Center One stand out above the New York City skyline, and then crossing the Ben Franklin Bridge as we headed into Philadelphia.

Revere Beach

We wanted to visit with Big Al and see fireworks on July Fourth. We found a way to watch three major pyrotechnic displays that lit up Revere Beach.

We sat on the wall as waves people shuffled up and down the boardwalk on typical hot night in the city. Fireworks could be scene from Marblehead, Swampscott and Boston, and the price of admission was free.

Beach baby

We hung out at beaches across New England and hiked trails at several state parks in the Pine Tree State.

World politics

Don't get me started. This Congress played a huge roll in making every American feeling like they were suffering from an endless stomach virus. There are reports that the economy is getting better. Tell that to the homeless, whose numbers continue to grow, and to the people who can't find a well-paying, full-time job. To top it off, the NSA is recording phone calls of all Americans. Is it subversive when my wife calls me at work to remind me to bring home milk?

The Future

I have no New Year's resolutions, but I have a pretty good idea what I want to do next. Right now, I am having a helluva time watching my son grow and become a fine young man. I am damn lucky I am married to a woman who has the patience and love to keep the two men in her life on the right track, and my dad still knows my name.

Beached on the Fourth of July

"When you finally go back to your old home, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood."

 Sam Ewing 

REVERE, Mass. — A wave of humanity shuffled past us as we sat on a stonewall facing Revere Beach on a humid July 4 night.

This was the place to spend an evening viewing fireworks from across the channel without the hassle of finding a parking space or dealing with a mob of rude people. Swampscot, Lynn, and Nahant were putting on blockbuster displays that could clearly be seen from Revere Beach. 

When we looked to our right of the beach, the town of Winthrop was also lighting up the skies just a few miles away, and yes, you could see Boston's incredible display, too. We watched it all from the comfort of a stonewall as gentle waves lapped the shoreline. There were also local, grand displays of explosives going off across Revere neighborhoods.

No Hatch Memorial Shell on the Charles River for three Mainers who avoid crowd scenes. The Boston Pops and its interpretation of the 1812 Overture by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky can transform a reluctant Patriot into a flag-waving citizen, but camping out two days to secure a front-row seat is not worth our efforts.

There were thousands of people wandering up and down Revere Beach boulevard as fireworks flashed all around us. Music blared from cars as traffic inched along the strip that is lined with several dives. State police patrolled the dark beach with their four-wheelers to keep the peace.

We were on a mission to seek out cool ocean sea breezes in the stifling city heat. There was a warm southerly breeze off the sandy shore, offering little relief to a sweltering public tempted to immerse themselves in the cool waters of the Atlantic.

A lot has been said and written about America's first public beach, and not all of it has been kind, but I still love the place, its fast food and the people who come from over the Boston area to spend a humid summer day.

The smells and crowds are notorious for triggering memories of the boulevard, which is one the best areas to jog or walk. And then there are beautiful woman who inspire any male runner or walker to go the distance. RHS teens staked their ownership of a stretch of wall that began in front of the MDC police station and ran all to the way Bianchi's Pizza. Kelly's Roast Beef was about a mile a way, but it was always worth the long walk to shell out a week's pay for a clam plate.

I was grateful to my family from Maine for sharing a wonderful July 4 and listening to my countless memories of beach that means so much to people who grew up in this city. We quietly watched the colorful flashes of fireworks up and down the surrounding shoreline on a typical humid night in Revere. There were hundreds of families doing the same.

Revere Beach has undergone so many restorations and transformations over a century. It endured the Blizzard of 1978, and even though the Cony Island of the East has passed into history, it is a part of me that I can't shake. Of course, I miss all those friends and family who once walked along its shoreline.

That's why I can't stay away from the place, especially on the Fourth of July.