Drowsiness is like a narcotic; it allows you to fall asleep without feelings of guilt about the dirty dishes in the sink, clothes in ant like heaps around the room, scattered books and papers occupying every chair and table, and the bed still unmade from the night before. Tomorrow is another day. Now it are tomorrow, well 5:30 AM (I am an early riser), and the narcotic has worn off; it is time to empty the coffee grounds from yesterday’s tomorrow. One look around the room should be sobering enough without a fresh brew. I think I know why drunks don’t want to sober up. Reality checks are not fun.

This brings me to the huge pile of news clippings to my right. I did not make the clippings. My brother Stan, for the past forty years has mailed me monthly, sometimes twice a month, two pound packets of magazine and newspaper clippings of items that have caught his eye. This, of course, just adds to mounds of journals and research papers that seem to have proliferated on their own.

Now Stan is a good man, a minister (now retired), and enjoyable for short periods of time; the same could be said for most relatives, I suppose. It is just that I am remembering a recent two week trip I took with him across country. I left Kentucky, he left Georgia to meet our sister in Nashville before the two of us left for a journey to California where I used to live. There was no question which van we would take; one look in the back of his left no doubt that a second occupant was possible only with a rocking chair on top. If a car is an extension of our homes this explains why a single man living a home built for a family is unable to entertain guests, even his own brother. He asks me to get a motel. Hark, the rappers, “Pot calls the kettle black, give that man a whack”.

The entire trip would read like a journal kept by Lewis and Clark but I recount here only items that I could use in court to request a DNA test to determine if we really are siblings. At each motel Stan buys a newspaper from each vending box; if there are four, he buys one of each. He likes to get the local flavor. By next morning the room is covered with discarded parts of the paper from which he has extracted scores of clipped or torn items ranging from one liners used by editors to fill space to half or full page articles interspersed with political cartoons and comic strips. His eye sees irony, lapses of grammar, or significance in almost every column and even advertisements, especially church ads with amusing sermon titles or somewhat embarrassing slips of language. Everyone needs a hobby I guess but I sometimes wonder what the maid thinks when she encounters a room resembling a newspaper recycling plant. Understand this goes on 365 days a year, not just on trips, and I am the recipient of these labors.

Well, I once made the mistake of telling Stan that I found his mailing interesting. At that I time I received only a few and sometimes rather amusing items. My brother is a widower who spends a lot of time alone; newspapers are his company. I would not deny him this comfort. Besides I am sure he finds many sermon illustrations he could use when he is asked to fill a pulpit.

Newspapers are not his only obsession. He like to stay in touch with his grandchildren by sending them postcards from places he travels. This is admirable, but hear me out. Every time we cross a state line we must immediately find a place to buy postcards even if it requires driving many miles out of the way to find appropriately scenic cards. But this requires finding a post office where each card can be hand stamped so the children will have a well documented log of his journeys. I estimate it added an entire extra day to our trip, but history will be the better for it. However, I digress. Perhaps there is something to be gleaned from the archives I have been heir to.

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Happy are those who find wisdom and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver and her revenue better than gold. Proverbs 3:13-14