Published: April 18, 2008 12:57 am            

Dustin’ off our lives ...

By the tone of her voice, it sounded like she was smiling when she said it.

I hope so, anyway.

My bride of nearly 33 years and I were just wrapping up a phone conversation the other day when she added, “By the way, if I ever have to dust your desk again I will divorce you.”

She then preceded to tell me what an ordeal it was to dust the top of the roll-top desk in the spare bedroom that doubles as our home office.

Not because of the desk itself, mind you, but all the junk on top of it.

It’s not junk, really, it’s good stuff, meaningful stuff — to me, anyway. The top of that desk is filled with memories.

There are souvenirs of various trips — a small wooden Dala horse from Sweden, a colorful ceramic cat from Mexico, a pair of dice from Las Vegas and a small, hand-crafted replica of a “chiva,” the brightly painted, open-air bus that fill the streets of Cartegena, Colombia.

There’s a small replica of the Liberty Bell from the city of my birth, plus a small replica cannon. I forget where that one came from, but it’s cool, anyway.

There are coffee mugs commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Cherokee Strip Land Run, the 25th anniversary of my high school graduation and the 100th anniversary of Oklahoma State’s Daily O’Collegian, the first newspaper to pay me for my words.

There’s a bell from the wedding of a former pastor’s son. You were supposed to ring the bell and they would kiss, as I remember. My athletic affiliations are on display in the form of a Pistol Pete bobblehead and a model tractor-trailer carrying the livery of the Chicago Cubs.

There’s a miniature baseball bat a friend brought me back from the minor league meetings a number of years ago. There’s a plastic statue of the character Earl, the father in the Jim Henson-produced TV show “Dinosaurs,” that aired on ABC in the early 1990s. I received that for a 40th birthday present.

There are family heirlooms like the small pieces of metal my grandfather called “egg chips.” They are stamped front and back with the name of the general store he ran in southern Minnesota in the early years of the 20th century, plus various monetary values, like 10 cents or 25 cents. When local farm families would sell him eggs, he would pay them in these chits, that could, of course, only be spent in his store. Grandpa died long before I came along, but it’s obvious he was a shrewd businessman.

There are other coins of various ilks, including commemorative coins from the 71st Flying Training Wing at Vance Air Force Base and the 14th Flying Training Wing at Columbus Air Force Base, Miss., as well as the personal coin of outgoing Air Education and Training Command chief Gen. William Looney III.

That doesn’t include, of course, the other bits of flotsam spilled across the top of the desk, each one a treasure in its own right.

OK, OK, I see her point. Dusting all that junk created a whole lot of extra work for my beloved. But I’m not alone.

A recent study by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research found having a husband creates an extra seven hours of housework each week for their wives.

My wife would rather I divest myself of all my desktop treasures. But I can’t help it, I’m a pack rat. It must run in the family. One of our cats has a habit of dragging stuff under our bed and stockpiling it there.

Actually I’m beginning to see her point. Not that I’ll change, mind you, I’ll just dust the desk myself from now on — someday.

She can’t divorce me. Also atop the desk is a green-shaded bankers’ lamp on which hangs a heart-shaped piece of wood on which is carved our initials and our wedding date.

Something tells me that’s going to stay put.



Mullin is senior writer of the News & Eagle.