Meth: a Ticking Timebomb Gone Viral

George, The Happy Giraffe

I was clearing out my Mom's room today when I came across several pieces of paper in one of her drawers. They were folded in four, and I almost discarded them in my hurry to get things done. I took a quick look, thinking they were old letters from relatives in England, but what I found were short children's stories she must have written long ago. One was called, 'George, The Happy Giraffe', and as I read her words, my tears began to flow.

I looked towards the sky and asked her why she had never told me about them. When we lived together, she was my sounding board and was (almost) always the first person to hear my stories. Of course, Mom was as biased as can be and (almost) always loved whatever it was I had written. And now that I know about these stories of hers, it would be my pleasure to transcribe them as items on my port.

It's funny how over time, things become invisible to us. When my parents emigrated from England in 1963, they brought very little with them on the ship 'The Fairsky' in terms of furniture and household items. And now, as I go through almost sixty years of accumulated stuff, I am finding some real gems among the dust-covered clutter. One that I will keep is a small steel table-mounted meat mincer that must be fifty or more years old...still wrapped in plastic and in perfect working order. My Mom was a bit of a TV shopping addict, and I am finding items like a pressure cooker and a brand new dinner set, all unopened and still in their original boxes.

But there are a couple of items that have been hiding in plain sight all this time and it took me until today to recognise what they actually are...a vintage late 60s or early 70s dresser with a matching wardrobe. Both are in perfect condition. It appears at some point they have been repainted, but that retro look is very in right now. I'm going to have to do some research to see what these items might sell for.

But the find of the day was definitely those stories. In one of them, a dog I had as a teenager and I are in the story. It was like seeing photographs in my mind whilst I read her words...flashbacks of how she saw us back then. I wish she had shared these stories with me while she was alive, but the discovery today was something special, and I do wonder if she knew that was how it would be after she was gone.