Wednesday, June 4, 2014

A Thousand Words About a 40 Year Old Clipboard? Go For It!


I get my one New York Times story a year, and brag it up the rest of the year.

This one was particularly fun: a personal essay on a rather ugly souvenir I got at Shea Stadium when I was a wee boy, and a reflection on the timelessness of fathers and sons watching baseball together.

This rust-brown portfolio with a gold Mets logo, gold clip and nary a dash of blue or orange has, over the decades, smoothed out mushed junior high homework, held my résumé during job interviews and housed book chapters that awaited editing. Several days a week, it holds the important material I plan to read on the train ride home while my work papers float around in my backpack.

I often wonder how this modest folder has survived my many moves while seemingly more worthy possessions like furniture and books were tossed like so many big-salary Marlins. My clipboard is not a cute bobblehead. I can’t wear it, it’s not autographed, and it’s clearly not game-used. So what keeps me clipped to it?

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