Newspaper Clippings

Dotting My Teas By: Marlene Oxender 

Do you suppose there is anyone from my generation who doesn’t own at least one newspaper clipping? Anyone who doesn’t know what it’s like to use a pair of scissors to cut around the borders of the article they’d like to keep? 

My mother’s collection of old newspaper clippings is a big one. It came in handy at times when my brother Stevie, who had Down syndrome, spent weekends with me. It gave him something to do as he sat on the floor and sorted through boxes. 

Mom had saved entire newspapers as well as individual stories she’d written about the people in her hometown. She interviewed her friends and neighbors, then wrote human-interest stories about the lives they’d lived. 

In one of the boxes was an article she’d written back in 1978 when Cleo Sleesman’s car was stolen. By the time Cleo told the story to my mother, he could tell her the end of the story – his car was unharmed and back in Edgerton.

Mom wrote that Cleo had started his day by stopping at the school to check the furnace before heading uptown to pay his utility bill. Standing in front of the school in the rain were two boys, ages thirteen and fourteen. Cleo asked them what they were doing. They said they were from Hicksville, and they were “waiting on a ride.” 

Cleo didn’t know they meant what they said. They really were waiting on a ride – which ended up being Cleo’s 1977 burgundy Mercury.  

After Cleo checked the furnace, he walked out of the school, and his car was nowhere to be found. He’d left the car keys in the ignition. The young boys were no longer there. His car was no longer there.

Mom wrote: “Area police were alerted. Cleo and Ellen knew there was not as much gas in the car as there usually is and they were hoping the boys would not wreck the car before it ran out of gas.”

At 4 p.m., the Sleesmans received a call. Their car had been located on State Line Road near Newville, Indiana. The keys were missing from the car, so the police needed to arrange for it to be towed back to Ohio. 

Before I had an appreciation for my mother’s collection of newspapers, I had jokingly felt sorry for myself. I really did wonder whether anyone else in the history of the world had inherited too many newspaper articles. Too many greeting cards. Too many papers.

As time allowed, I began reading those old stories. My feelings shifted from “Woe is me” to “Woe is you” if you did not inherit newspaper clippings. 

What do you have to read at your house if you don’t have old newspaper clippings? I’ve almost forgotten what life was like prior to my newspaper-clipping days.  

It’s comical to think about the ways our estates tell our story. We live a good life on earth, and we leave a house full of stuff to prove it. 

The youngsters who took off with Cleo and Ellen’s car back in 1978 are now senior citizens. Do you suppose they have a collection of photos and newspaper clippings that would tell us how their lives turned out? Did they eventually learn to give instead of take away?   

My mother’s last earthly task was baking a birthday cake for Stevie. It was chocolate. She baked the cake but didn’t have time to clean her kitchen before she experienced a stroke. It still makes me smile when I think of the fact that she’d left this earth with a sink full of dirty dishes.  

It made me wonder if there is a final lesson to be learned. Mom was 92 years old when she made one last birthday cake for the son she’d taken care of for 50 years.  

Maybe the dirty dishes were her way of reminding us that life gets messy at times, but here is one last cake. Here is Stevie. It’ll be tough. But you can do it. 

Kind of like those newspaper clippings she left behind. She did a lot of writing and a lot of work. Now someone else needs to take over.     

When I sit at my desk in the early morning hours, I can see the moon through the west window. And the sunrise is making an appearance in the east window. Perhaps the morning moon is nodding at the sun on the other side of the sky, letting it know its shift is over. 

And so it is with us. We come to the end of our shift. We leave our stories and newspaper clippings behind. We leave our greeting cards and memories. We leave our loved ones on earth to finish the work we started – knowing they’ll do a good job. And knowing we’ll catch up with each other sometime soon. 

Marlene Oxender is a writer, speaker, and author. She writes about growing up in the small town of Edgerton, her ten siblings, the memorabilia in her parents’ estate, and her late younger brother, Stevie Kimpel, who was born with Down syndrome. Her three published books, Picket Fences, Stevie and Grandma, You Already Am Old, are available on Amazon. Marlene can be reached at mpoxender@gmail.com