I had the day off since it’s my winter vacation. A leaky roof had rendered a lot of the contents unusable. This included several boxes of comic books that had belonged to my brother. Taking the ruined items to the local dump was more troubling than I’d anticipated.
A little background
My brother, Mando, was an interesting person. He was very well liked, was very devoted to friends, and frustrated me to my wit’s end.
My family owned a restaurant when I was growing up in Santa Rosa, California. My mom passed away in 1987 (way too early). My father ran the restaurant as best he could for several years, but in the end he had to sell it off and he retired.
Mando, lived with my dad for several years. Later, my father suffered some health setbacks and relied on Mando to help him get by. Eventually, my father moved to a senior living facility and Mando had to move out. A caregiver was provided by the county health services so my father got by without Mando, mostly.
I hate paperwork
Mando liked living with my father since he didn’t have to work hard to pay his own way. He worked as an inventory counter for a company that provided inventory services to grocery stores, pharmacies, and other retail outlets.
The work paid minimum wage and had irregular hours. That was OK when Mando lived with my father. But now that he was on his own, his irregular paychecks meant that he didn’t pass a credit check or even earn enough to pay rent in expensive Sonoma County.
He decided to live in his car with his best friend, Romy (short for Romero). They would end up living like that for several years. A modern day “Odd Couple.”
Whenever we would get together, I would always encourage Mando to get a new job or ask for more pay from his current company. After all, he was a supervisor, and should be eligible to get a raise, regular hours, or both. He would always rebuff me saying that he liked the position he was in.
He didn’t want to keep applying for apartments, because “I hate paperwork.” I suggested he apply for housing assistance from Sonoma County. Again, he said not because “I hate paperwork.” He also didn’t want to get put on a two year waiting list.
These conversations continued for 10 years or more and always ended up with the both of us frustrated and mad.
Hold my stuff
When Mando had to move out of my father’s place he placed a lot of stuff in storage. His stuff along with stuff that belonged to Romy. Eventually, they couldn’t keep up the payments on the storage unit and asked to keep some of their stuff in our extra building.
Their stuff included several items of my dad’s stuff that he wasn’t able to keep at the senior living apartment, and several piles of Mando’s stuff, including several boxes full of comic books.
His stuff stayed there until today.
Wet and moldy
The building in which his comic books had been stored had a leaky roof that I didn’t detect until this year. That leak was worse than I had imagined and water dripped directly on his comic collection. The leaky roof was replaced recently and today I went in to take stock of the damages.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the comics had not been stored in plastic bags. So they had gotten wet, moldy, and were starting to disintegrate. Even the few comics in plastic bags had gotten a little wet. There was nothing salvageable.
I loaded my car with the remnants of the boxes of comics and took them to the dump. It made me melancholy because Mando didn’t have much when he died and there’s not much of him left except a few photos and many memories.
There’s still more stuff
There is still more stuff in that storage room that needs to be examined. Mostly my father’s stuff. He spent many years in local radio. There are hundreds of cassette tapes of his shows, several boxes of Spanish language LP records, and countless photos of people I don’t recognize.
That’s going to be another tough cleaning day that needs to happen.