Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Historical Markers

Most of us have things that make us think of the past. It might be looking at old photo albums of children and vacations, or pictures from your various weddings. I found another nice one some time ago. I happened upon my collection of all of my old passports. It was fascinating to look at my own portrait and see how it has evolved from age 21 to age 60, and then inside of the passports seeing the various douane/customs stamps makes one think of the various countries that you have visited over the years.

Yesterday I found another historical marker, and to me it was in a surprising place. In the past I wrote a lot of checks every month. Bills for gas, water, electricity, and telephone; various credit cards for department stores, gasoline, visa, master card, American express; house and car payments, and annual registration and license plates; and child support payments, insurance for the car(s), house, and life insurance. I also can remember myself often writing checks at the check-out-counter of stores.

Nowadays about half of these I no longer have to pay, for example child support. My house and car are paid for, I no longer have gasoline company credit cards, and many of my other recurring bills are automatically paid by direct debit. At the supermarket and the gas station I don’t write checks, I use a debit card. So sometimes now I will go several months without writing a single check.

I realized that in my check book, the check register, where you write down the check number and how much and to whom on what date, is the same one that I began using on March 3, 1999. So I just passed the tenth anniversary on this same check register!

Gosh, in May 1999 there is the check of the graduation gift we sent to my niece Teresa when she graduated. And for some reason back in 2001 I sent my Mother a check for $500-. I sure don’t remember why. In 2002 there were lots of checks to lawyers around the time of my last divorce. In March of 2005 I see a check to a fellow fluorescent mineral collector. In January 2007 there are various checks associated with buying my house when I moved back to America.
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This is almost like a diary or a photo album. What nice nostalgia.
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