Follow the Money

--> I loaded up my little car with all the financial relics of my life from 1974 to 1999 and drove the crumbling boxes over to the parking lot at Catonsville UMC on Saturday and dumped a mountain of paper into a large trash bin that would be poured into a truck where I presume they had the shredder.

Gone are pay stubs, receipts, insurance reports, bank statements, cancelled checks, and stacks of financial forms. Gone too is the proof that, during the 70's and into the 80's, I lived on less than Mother Teresa, bought my first house for $13,000, (it was a handyman's special – too bad we weren't handy,) was an early adopter of both the TI 86 and Commodore 64 computers, purchased every He-Man action figure and Castle Grayskull, bought wrapping paper for every PTA Fundraiser between 1987 and 1999, and paid out tons of tuition to music teachers, gymnastics instructors, driving schools, and tutors for any subject that ended in "ology." Of course, no one has ever asked me to prove any of those things, particularly in the last 12 years.

Happily, I have gained a large hole on a shelf in my attic. I'm hoping to enlarge that hole by daring to rid myself of documents from this century. There will be another shredding event at Green Valley Marketplace, 7280 Montgomery Road in Elkridge on Oct. 27 from 1-4 p.m. If you missed the one on Saturday, this is another chance to get rid of those pesky old boxes.