Compartment 7

This compartment has a stack of magazines from the basement (copies of my grandmother Judy’s high school Argus magazine), ‘For Dummies’ books (Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, Windows XP, Google), the Microsoft Word Version 6 for Windows Quick Reference, a book called Human Growth by Lester F. Beck, and a small book called 365 Ways to Love Your Child by Alex J. Packer PhD.

All of the books were found in the second floor study except for Human Growth, which was in the Ballantine Ale box from the basement (I couldn’t fit it back in because I failed to recreate the box’s original tetris-style arrangement, so it stays on this shelf now).

This shelf is a mix of things that Judy kept from her childhood and things that Henry kept from throughout his adulthood, and perhaps one or two things that they mutually kept together.

Judy was pretty thrilled when I showed her the Argus magazines she edited in her high school days – she was adamant that we keep them all, though she wasn’t interested in keeping one of the copies in her room or nearby to look at. I can relate to her wanting to keep them in the basement file cabinet drawer, even though she will almost certainly never set foot in that room again in her life – and she shouldn’t (it’s gross down there). I have taken it upon myself to look through that room and show her the fun things I find that she might enjoy.

Henry and Judy liked the ‘For Dummies’ books, mainly for office technologies. I think they were mainly my grandfather’s thing – when I knew him, he went on the office computer a lot. He did what everyone did on the computer – he looked at stuff on the Internet, played computer games, watched videos, he probably even watched Internet porn in its early years (I’m sure this was revolutionary for him), read the news, checked emails, sent emails, he even had a Facebook page. I scrolled through his entire page and couldn’t find a single post or comment from him, though I feel like he did have comments – he had the profile for the last 5 years of his life and he did use it from time to time. I opened our Facebook message conversation and found only one message:

Henry liked using technology and always tried to stay up to date with the latest things.

Based on the date this message was sent, I think that he was thanking me for accepting his friend request. I wish I had responded because we might have been able to chat, but alas, I was 12. I’m grateful for the time that we did spend together and I feel that I did know him, though mostly in the way a little boy knows his grandfather. He died when I was 16, three days before my 17th birthday. We had spent a memorable day together, maybe that year or the year before, when he took teenaged me to MoMa to see a Cindy Sherman exhibition. We ate at the cafe there, which was too expensive for my parents to bring me to at the time – it was just the two of us. We talked about my interests and his interests and we both really enjoyed the Cindy Sherman show. I’m grateful to have had that day with him and I’ll always remember it.

Henry had 34 Facebook friends, sent at least one message (probably more), and also posted one photo in 2011.

The photo is of my uncle Dan (I think), as a child, holding a rake, with the caption “Boy with rake, grows up to become a rake.” Henry was witty – or, perhaps, Dan made the account for him and posted this photo of himself, coming up with a droll caption in the vein of his father. Here’s the photo in question: