 JANUARY 7 • 2021 | 7

for openers

Here’s to the 
Memories
I

’m at a total loss to 
describe the pure, 
unmitigated joy I felt, 
I’m sure you all felt, when 
the clock struck midnight 
on Dec. 31 and 
you finally said 
goodbye to 
2020.
Perhaps you 
kissed a loved 
one, clanked 
glasses over a 
toast or shared 
a few expletives to say good 
riddance to arguably the 
worst year in our lifetime — 
on so many levels. 
I’m proud to announce 
I’ve started the new year 
having shed several pounds. 
Actually, I’ve shredded several 
pounds. I finally caved and 
went through file boxes of 
decades old paperwork. 
After much consternation, I 
finally realized there was no 
reasonable excuse to hold on 
to a 10-year-old AT&T bill.
My kids marvel at my 
collection of old paperwork. 
They’re of a generation 
that barely knows what an 
“8½ x 11” piece of paper 
is. Everything they save is 
digital. In cyberspace, you 
don’t need a shredder, just a 
delete button. And I’m not 
good at using that either.
Despite having converted 
to paperless billing, I can’t 
bring myself to deleting 
email bills I receive from 
Comcast, Consumers 
Power, Verizon, etc. And 

what would my morning 
be without yet another 
sales pitch email from 
Kohl’s? (I’m losing faith 
that the Unsubscribe button 
works.) Add the daily email 
correspondences I receive 
and as of this writing my 
Gmail account is home to 
literally 38,538 emails. 
Ironically, the oldest email in 
the bunch is from New Year’s 
Eve 2009; a correspondence 
to our Dick Purtan morning 
radio show intern at the time. 
Discovering that, I literally 
paused during the writing of 
this column to email “Steve” to 
see how he was doing 11 years 
later. It’s been several hours and 
still no word back from him yet. 
Darn, and we were so close. 
Next on my purging agenda 
will be my personal time 
capsules, the numerous boxes 
of personal memorabilia I 
haven’t looked at in years. 
A preliminary peek inside 
one box has already revealed 
some real gems. 
There’s the handmade, 
crayon-written Mother’s Day 
card dated May 14, 1961, 
which I signed, not just from 
“Alan” but from “Alan M.” 
Apparently, I felt the need to 
distinguish myself from the 
other Alans my mom must 
have known. 
Just found a card from 
1961 that informed my 
parents I had officially been 
promoted from kindergarten 
to first grade at Bagley 
Elementary School in 

Detroit. Three second 
grade report cards 
revealed I missed 
12 days of school in 
each of the first two 
semesters of 1962. 
Apparently, my 
hypochondria kicked 
in at an earlier age 
than I thought.
A handwritten 
letter from my mom 
dated September 
1973, my first 
semester at Michigan State, 
written on store-bought 
stationery called Notes from 
a Jewish Mother, repeated her 
longstanding Yiddishe mama 
mantra of making sure “I 
washed off fruit before 
eating it.” My mother could 
never have imagined that a 
pandemic would ensure my 
washing off everything that 
came into my house. 
Mom also asked if I had 
remembered to “wear your 
thongs” in the shower I 
shared with my dorm suite 
mates. For the uniformed, 
“thongs” is what my mom 
referred to as the footwear 
she implored us kids to wear 
in shared bathing situations. 
Perhaps more commonly 
referred to as flip-flops. 
Anyway, I needed to clarify 
that in case you thought 
my “thongs” came from 
Victoria’s Secret. 

Next up, tackling my 
boxes of years’ worth of 
personal sports mementos. 
I’m excited to see if I still 
have the sample of turf I dug 
up from the Tiger Stadium 
infield after we defeated 
Boston on Oct. 3 to capture 
the American League East 
Championship. Better that 
I find it before my kids. I 
don’t want them to think 
their dad’s been hiding a bag 
of grass in the basement.
In the meantime, here’s hoping 
years from now all our boxes 
of memorabilia will contain the 
following cherished souvenir 
— the document confirming 
we got vaccinated from the 
COVID virus. That’s a keeper.
Happy, healthy New Year. 

Alan Muskovitz is a writer, voice-over/

acting talent, speaker, and emcee. Visit 

his website at laughwithbigal.com,“Like” 

Al on Facebook and reach him at 

amuskovitz@renmedia.us.

Alan 

Muskovitz

semester at Michigan State, 
Next up, tackling my 

PHOTOS COURTESY ALAN MUSKOVITZ

VIEWS

