BY ANTHONY BUCCINO

Whatever happened to George Carlin’s stuff?

Actually, I don’t care what happened to the entertainer’s stuff. His stuff was crap. My crap is stuff. He would say so himself, except he’s gone, and as an atheist, probably not far. But as for me I’ve been thinking about my stuff as I sit here in my man cave/bunker/warehouse with about 60 of those white storage boxes full of my stuff.

I’m not a pack rat. I’ve been writing for more than 40 years, and I don’t have any notes from before 1971, more or less. So, I’ve got a lot of notes about stuff I wrote about, and probably a lot more notes about stuff I wanted to write about but haven’t done so yet. And boxes of books that I used in my research. And more boxes of books I intend to read when I get some time. I can’t bear to part with any of them.

Some of these boxes I had taken down from the attic where there are just as many boxes as the beams will hold. I was looking for something, and I probably found it, but haven’t gotten around to bringing the boxes back up, yet.

While the boxes were handy, I went through them and discarded all the junk. That eliminated almost two boxes. I filled those two boxes with accumulated knick-knacks, opened playing cards, souvenirs and such, Mom’s swizzle stick collection and such, then labeled them so they are ready to go up to the attic.

I compare these sagging white boxes surrounding me to the various hard drives hooked up, and others standing by my computer. It’s probably a close comparison as to which hold more data. But that’s not what got me thinking about my stuff. A power surge or a burst water pipe would certainly have me moaning for all the lost treasures in my stuff. But, no, that’s not it either.

It’s all about what happens to my stuff when I’m not here anymore to take care of it, to sift through it – looking in just the right box for the right piece of paper, or photo, or book, that I need to somehow complete my thought. With the computer I can put in a word or phrase, and I get rows and rows of documents where that word or phrase appears. With these white boxes and the ones cooling in the attic, the sorting algorithm is in my ever-shrinking pack of grey matter.

When I’m gone, what will become of my stuff? Will my surviving relatives declare my stuff as crap, and send it off to the Happy Hill Recycling Farm? Already, I know someone in whom this collection cluttering the basement incites a near grand mal seizure at the mere thought of dumping all this stuff without my aging muscles to bag, lug and tote to the curb.

The books, in several trips, would go to the local library’s annual used book sale, and those not sold to be refreshed into new books some day. My notes and scraps of ideas? Oh, where will they go without me? I suppose the truth is that if there is no extant published version of what I may have produced from my stuff, online or in print somewhere, the thoughts and background stuff will be surely tossed.

I get it. I have to get rid of my stuff so the next guy has a place for his stuff. But first, he has to get rid of my crap so he’ll have a place for his stuff.

Mowing the lawn of my youth was as cathartic as vacuuming.

BY ANTHONY BUCCINO

It’s the same story every week: “Ant, the house is all dusted. You can vacuum when you’re ready.”

“Aw, I got to vacuum the whole house,” I mutter under my breath.

When I’m ready, I grab the vacuum from the upstairs closet, plug it in and click it on. While the noise drowns out the rest of the world, I focus on specks of dust and lint challenging me to a duel they will lose.

Before I know it, my head is cleared of everyday life. My mind is fogged by memories of Mom and her Electrolux that slid on metal blades across our old rug in the four-room cold water flat.

There was that time when the neighborhood version of “Benny Miller-from-Cucamonga” tried to sell Mom a new vacuum. “Would you let your eight-year-old son pick up a handful of dirt outside and eat it?”

“Of course NOT!”

“But, Mrs. Buccino,” he said, “the rug inside your house is much worse than the dirt outside.”

Hey, I was eight. I wouldn’t eat dirt in the yard. Anymore. What was this guy talking about?

Ma was unconvinced and sent him on his way. She wouldn’t even give him the name of a friend he could call on, the way a now-former friend had given her his name. We made do with that old Electrolux until after we moved to our big house, where there was now also a wall-to-wall carpet to vacuum.

That new house had an 8,000 square foot side lawn that needed to be mowed. Gone was that old rotary push mower. In my eagerness to use the new Lawn Boy Dad bought, that chore became mine.

After a gazillion pulls on the easy-start cord, the roaring motor drowned out the rest of the world. I focus on overlapping cuts, straight lines, the end of my imaginary row where I’ll turn around and head back in 200-foot paths for the next hour and a half.

Automatically, I round trees, maneuver past pits, side-cut hills, and watch for that silly little patch of blue grass growing below the black walnut tree. I kick aside the fallen green walnuts. I know where every root pops up, and where I might create a divot. I eye the neighbor’s hedges that need trimming, stop and empty the bag of clippings, leaving the mower to whine for my return. As my hands are shaken into numbness, my brain solves all the problems of my little world.

After Dad died, and I had a home of my own, Ma’s lawn was still under my stewardship. Weekly I’d haul the latest working mower and gas can back and forth between our lawns.

I’d tell my daughter, “Hey, you want to visit Grandma? We can take our lawn mower for a ride. It’ll be so much fun.”

The older I got, the larger Mom’s lawn seemed. By comparison, my home lawn was a postage stamp and hers was the novel, “Pride and Prejudice”. At least Mom was still up to doing her own vacuuming.

Meanwhile, back at my ranch, I was able to bring home a Labrador Retriever, as long as I promised to vacuum all the dog hair in its wake. No one could figure how our basement dog got her fur past the drop stairs into the second-floor attic. But there I was, vacuuming dog hair in the attic.

Two dogs later, and I’m still vacuuming dog hair everywhere. Heck, our latest Lab sees me plug in the vacuum, and heads to the sanctuary of his crate on the bare floor side of the basement.

I don’t know that my father ever touched our vacuum. Mom was a housewife. Dad went to work, Ma did her chores. Monday was wash day. Tuesday was ironing. Wednesday was scrubbing. Thursday was mending. Friday was mopping. Every day was cooking dinner.

When Mom vacuumed, the old Electrolux had a cloth bag held in by clamps. When the bag was full, Mom would empty the dirt and dust onto old newspapers spread out on the floor. Try doing that online. These days when the bag is full, I snap it out and replace it with a clean bag. Our local vacuum dealer recommends we have ours serviced about every 90 days. Huh? I don’t even change the bags that often.

Nowadays we split chores. I don’t mind vacuuming. Bachelors must vacuum their pads, no? Eventually, yes? In fact, I sometimes really get into vacuuming. I flip over furniture, zip under dining room chairs, slip under slipcovers and leave a path of no footprints. I crisscross the carpet giving it the look of center field at Yankee Stadium. All this time, I keep a business-like look on my face. You can’t let on that vacuuming is cathartic.

“Aw, I got to vacuum!” You may hear me moan, but I look forward to those moments when the noise fills the outside air and my brain solves all the problems of my little world.

BY ANTHONY BUCCINO

It started innocently, as all these stories do. I was on an open-ended summer vacation at Lake Erie. In September, I’d return to New Jersey and my junior year of high school. I’d count the days until I got my driver’s license, and could return to this summer place.

That day, my buddy drove us in his VW Bug to a new shopping center in Mentor where the stores were connected and under one roof. It was the biggest thing to hit northeastern Ohio in 1970 since practically ever. The Ohio kids got their license at 15 – geeze, 15! – if they wanted.

While wandering aimlessly along the cavern of shops, a frantically-waving hand on the other side of the window inside a Friendly’s Restaurant caught our eye. It was my buddy’s neighbor Cyndi, and she was so excited to run into us so far from home. I knew Cyndi, and her mom sitting there, but the new girl – let’s call her Ronnie – caught my eye.

Soon I found myself spending a lot of time at Cyndi’s, and her cousin Ronnie showed up nearly all the time. Evenings, we sat on the front steps listening to the Woodstock album on the eight-track. Ronnie liked listening to the Beatles because they were banned in her house because of something John Lennon said.

As a group, we went practically everywhere. Cyndi drove, and we went here and there, to pick up pop, visit a farm stand, or hit the miniature golf links. And I tagged along with the family to the kid brother’s Little League games at Cederquist Park.

One time, we teenagers got volunteered to work at Cyndi’s church cleaning the ceiling tiles in the kitchen. As long as Ronnie was there, it didn’t matter where there was.

Ronnie and I took walks around the block where Cyndi lived. We were still too shy to hold hands, but we were hanging on every word the other said. We were looking for clues that this summer thing would be a forever thing. Walking and talking with the pretty girl lifted the veil of shyness.

A long distance relationship is fine for a shy guy. At home, you could always defer to your girlfriend hundreds of miles away, and say things like, “Gee, I have to run. I owe her a letter.” And, “I can’t wait until I get back to Ohio to see my girl again.” No one would be the wiser.

But a gal wants someone who’s there. Who can take her to the school dance. Someone she can see in the hallways at school. A guy who’s not too far away to do things with. Long distance phone calls and weekly letters in the mail won’t carry that weight.

It’s been more than forty years since we parted. I’ve had other heartbreaks, but none as permanent as the first. Perhaps our story will become a Lifetime channel movie. We met, lost contact, lived our lives and then one day we each look up at the random table at the random nursing home and see each other again. Of course, I’m wondering if she remembers me, or am I a long-forgotten minor distraction? The music over the closing film credits will be that ’60s Four Seasons song, “I’ll go on living and keep on forgiving, because …” Well, you know the rest.

Is it Ronnie I want to meet in that senior citizens home, or am I deep-down longing to meet myself? Although I’m pushing sixty, inside, much of the time I’m still that sixteen-year-old, wide-eyed, innocent – amazed that a beautiful girl would speak with me. Or leave a burning torch in my soul.