The Rolodex file

michele@theheraldnewspapers.com

I’ve had a rolodex sitting on my counter in my kitchen for the last five years. I think I may have looked in it three times. So I decided to make better use of the space and get rid of the rolodex. Of course, before I could do that I had to look through each and every card to make sure I wasn’t throwing something important away.
As I flipped through the stack of cards it was fun to reminisce about some of the people who were in it. “Joe, remember Jennifer? I wonder how she’s doing now.”
Some of the cards were over ten years old. There was even a couple that may have been fifteen. Ouch! Am I dating myself?
It was fun to think about the friends that I had lost contact with over the years. It made me want to jump up and start calling the numbers on the cards. But since it was early morning and most of the numbers were from the western time zone that may not be such a smart move, especially since they haven’t heard from me for so long. I can just hear it now, “Who was that honey?” “Oh an old friend I knew. I wonder why she’s calling me so darned early!”
Anyway, I made it through the morning without making one call. However, when throwing the rolodex cards away I found I wasn’t able to part with about a third of them. For one reason or another I thought I should hold on to their number. After all, you never know when I might want to pick up that phone and give them a blast from the past!
It’s funny how we hold onto things. Out of the twenty plus cards I saved I will probably use many three or four. But I’m going to save them anyway. Maybe I’ll put them into my database in my computer. There they will remain until I run across them some day and think it would be a good idea to give the person on the card a call again. There they will remain for years to come or until my hard drive gets wiped out and then they will be truly gone forever. Gee, maybe I should just hang on to the cards.