Mary Belk: Nostalgia runs deep in my attic

I’m growing more nostalgic with each passing day. I didn’t mean for that to happen.
I figured by middle age I’d be thick-skinned as a cobra, dulled, standing on the curb yawning as the band passed by. Played out, uninterested. That’s what I thought.

Instead, I’ve taken to tugging on the dangling cord of the pull-down ladder that leads to the attic. I clamber up the steps like a noisy 10-year-old on a rainy day and rummage through great boxes bulging with a lifetime of souvenirs. Thick, plush photograph albums, fastened with decaying strands of leather infested with dry-rot. Bundles of string-tied letters. Saran-wrapped locks of hair. Maps marked with remembered routes of camping trips out West. Yellowed newspaper clippings falling apart from folding and refolding. Theater programs and match covers older than Leonardo DiCaprio.

I listen to the secret attic sounds. A squirrel skittering along the eaves. A pine branch tickling the shingles. The wind wheezing by. And on rainy days the staccato rhythm of droplets on the roof, steady as artillery fire.

Used to be, I’d rush to the attic to find some specific book like Hop on Pop. Then I’d hurdle back down, jumping past the last few rungs. Now I sit and pore over postcards trying to decide if I should frame this one or that one.

It occurred to me not long ago that maybe I should buy a filing cabinet for mementos I’ll never use but can’t stand to toss out. Under “A” would be artwork—those stacks of little drawings by my children. Sketches done in colored pencils, watercolors, and finger paints.

The “B” section would hold heaps of baby pictures too abundant to paste in albums.

And under “C” would be college memorabilia. Rooting through reminders of my college days opens a floodgate of memories. They come hurling at me like Tom Glavine fastballs. A time capsule discovered.

That first summer quarter. Band practice was at one o’clock in the afternoon in a steamy cracker-box room on the second floor of the old Music Building. We were smushed together like a tin of Toll House cookies that were stacked before they cooled.

Most of the other classrooms were just as hot. Math upstairs in Broun Hall and English in the L Building. Nothing was air-conditioned, and we couldn’t wear shorts to class in those days.
Between classes, we drove past Chewacla to the rock quarry where we floated in the forbidden icy water. We cruised Opelika Road, scarfing fast food from Bonanza Burger, Hungry Boy and Dairy Delite. And late at night we’d meet at the Kopper Kettle for a cup of over-cooked coffee and a slab of coconut cream pie.

Greedy as a chipmunk with a jaw full of nuts, I pulled the pieces of my past from cardboard boxes I’d toted from attic to attic for safekeeping. If I move, I’ll take the boxes along, make room for them in the new house’s attic, because their contents matter, because they make me smile.

I’ll take them because I can’t leave them behind. I know it to be true, for dead certain.

Mary Belk lives in Auburn and writes a column for the Opelika-Auburn News.