Barbara J. Hamby

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It’s Just the Gypsy in My Soul

Whenever we get these big drops in temperature in just a day or a couple of days, I start wanting to live in a warmer climate. I’ve been cold all day. Now I have a heater blowing on my legs and it’s putting me to sleep. The high was 77 a few days ago and 58 today.

While hunting for files to get odds and ends of papers put away, I found lots of things I’d totally forgotten I had. Some I threw away, but I’m not ready to discard a few of them. I found the printed program from a memorial service for Isaac Asimov that was held at the national convention of the American Humanist Association here in Portland the year that he died. I was one of the volunteers who helped with the convention and was able to attend a few of the functions.

Some of the paperwork I found will help me with writing memoirs. The travel souvenirs are tempting to keep, but too much trouble to find space for and cart around.

I also found a few pictures I’d forgotten about and I intend to keep them.

My next youngest sister, Bea, compiled a list of places I have lived as an adult--the ones that she remembers, anyway. She only missed a couple. I think I have lived in almost every kind of housing there is, from a room in a rooming house, to apartments, to mobile homes, manufactured homes, single family dwellings, duplexes, etc. So far, I’ve missed living in a condo, but I came close to buying one a number of years back. In sixty years, I’ve lived in about twenty different places. There’s no moss on these feet.

It would be appropriate, I think, to have my ashes scattered to the four winds when I’m gone.