The Birth Certificates

  My organizational skills are shy to none and leaning to the none side more than anything. I get this from Mom.  It was drilled into her head (as it was mine) to save things "because you might need them one day". While this thought may be true to some extent, it sure makes for a lot of clutter.  Mom had a filing system that rivaled....none.  She would file recipes in with receipts because that was where they landed.  In the midst of that, one could often find poems, photographs and birth certificates.  It all made sense to her so that was all that mattered.  The rest of us were at a loss to find anything of importance in her filing system.   I, on the other hand, do not file things at all.  They are here somewhere and, usually, I can go right to them...unless someone else has decided the important papers should not be stashed in the soup tureen or keys under the clock and has moved the items to a more logical place.  Perhaps it is their logic...just not mine.  Important papers should be kept in the soup tureen since it is never used for soup.  Duh!

  Well, today, I needed those important papers called birth certificates.  I went to the "soup tureen" and, lo and behold, it was empty!  EMPTY, I tell you!  Nary a paper could be found in there...only a pair of baby shoes were hidden in the bowl. (Yeah, those really were in there but I do not know why.)  So, the search was on for the illusive papers.  I checked all the logical places such as the family Bible, under the mantel clock, in the top drawer of the buffet and in the last book I read but I found no birth certificates.  While I knew the goofy things were in none of those places, I actually did look there!  I did, however, recall that the papers needed were tied in a neat bundle along with things like the land deed, marriage certificate and baptismal records.  They all were "filed" together in the huge world of "Nowhere Land".

  Finally, I had a thought and went straight to the bundle exactly where it should have been.  I guess I just had to make for an interesting day as I hunted the house through and through.  Son was to make copies of the papers so he untied my neat bundle and started sorting the all important papers.   Birth certificate..check!  Marriage license..check! (I was on a roll here!)  Hog registration..check???  Hog registration?  We do not have hogs!
  

 Sure enough, I had followed Mom's method to a T!  In with our papers was an envelope containing hog registration papers dated 1949.  Pop had registered a litter of baby pigs in 1949!  There was a certificate for Ester Jean I, Ester Jean II and Pride! These were the three surviving piglets born to Pet Boy and Lady Ester III.  Birth certificates (more or less) for a litter of piglets owned by Pop way back in the day.  Now that was an envelope containing some important papers if I ever saw any! Wow!  Son looked at me in disbelief.  I guess I really should not have packed those with the family papers, huh?  At least I knew where the papers were and they were not in the soup tureen!  Now, I wonder why baby shoes are in the tureen???