What do you keep, what do you discard, what do you find a new home for?

Those were the hard decisions we were faced with—are still faced with—as we downsized and moved from Arkansas to Texas. Many of the artifacts I’m thinking of came from our parents and grandparents, and a few a bit older than that. It seems wrong to throw them out, but who will want them when we pass on? From a sense of nostalgia and history, will anyone really look at them again? From a sense of storage space, who has enough to handle five generations of artifacts?

I’ve been earnestly dealing with this since at least 2020. The first things to go were Dad’s tools. What boy doesn’t want his dad’s tools? My brother and I split the tools (he took the vast volume of hardware) after Dad died in 1997. Twenty years of having them clog up my garage and never using them convinced me to get rid of most of them—though not the offset box wrenches. In fact, dealing with them and realizing that Dad never got rid of anything, leaving us a house full of treasures and junk to deal with, gave me a negative example that I’m trying not to leave to my kids. When I hit the grave, I hope to have one chair, one small table, one bed, one dinner place setting, three changes of clothes, and enough books to keep me interested according to the condition I’m in at the time.

One artifact from my dad had me stumped for a while. It’s a book Dad sent home from Italy during WW2: Mud, Mules, and Mountains, a book of war cartoons by Bill Mauldin. I know I’ve written about him and Dad before. Both Bill and my dad were assigned to the Stars and Stripes, Dad as a typesetter, Bill as the famous cartoonist. Dad told me Bill often had him (Dad) pose for him as he (Bill) drew his cartoons, not to depict the man necessarily but to get the body posture correct.

Bill gave Dad a copy of this book in Italy and signed it. But it wasn’t a simple signature. It was a quick pencil drawing of a man at a linotype machine, as Dad would typically have been. The inscription was to “Tod” rather than “Todd” (though there might be a part of a second “d” there), and Mauldin signed his name. Dad mailed the book to his parents in Rhode Island rather than carry it through a war zone. My grandparents opened the envelope, perhaps read the book, returned it to the envelope, and put it away for safekeeping.

Thus it sat until I found it some time between 1997 and 2022. When I donated copies of the Stars and Stripes to the University of Rhode Island library, I kept the book, believing it to be something special. Recently I read it (mostly pictures), showed it to my daughter (who knew her grandfather), and made the decision that it’s something I shouldn’t keep.

In thinking about how to “dispose” of it, I decided to send it to my nephew, Chris, who still lives in RI. I have a number of photographs to send him, and this will easily go in the larger envelope. Chris is as interested in family history as I am, and he and his boys will enjoy having it. Other family in the area will enjoy getting to see it.

I hope, if Chris ever decides he doesn’t want it, he sends it to the URI library to add to the Norman Todd Stars and Stripes collection. But once it’s his, the choice is his. The gift from me comes with no strings attached.

Is the book valuable? Copies are on sale for $25-30 on Amazon and Ebay. Possibly the pictorial signature adds to the value. I mean, how many people have an original and unique Bill Mauldin cartoon? But, again, that decision now rests with the receiver of the gift.

Thanks, Dad and Bill for passing down this memory to us, and to Oscar and Lilly for preserving it. You done good.