It’s Around Here Somewhere : If What You Lose Is Important Enough, Chances Are You’ll Never Find It

NARDI REEDER CAMPION first appeared in this space some time ago when I quoted from an essay she had published in the Boston Globe listing the things her Wellesley Class of 1938 had been before .

Her list astonished the young, who could not believe that their parents or grandparents had grown up without such taken-for-granteds as television, nylon, frozen foods, credit cards, ballpoint pens, antibiotics, polio vaccine, penicillin, panty hose and the Pill.

Campion is a free-lance writer. She lives in Hanover, N.H. Last Thanksgiving, while visiting a daughter in Altadena, she asked if she could visit me on Mt. Washington, and she did. She is bright, quick, curious, likable and energetic and seems to have overcome the deprivations of our youth.

Recently, she sent me a column she had written some time ago for the New York Times. It is about losing things:

“Over the years, I have lost keys, birth certificates, silverware, gloves, lists, checks, cash, glasses, engagement calendars (that’s the worst). I have also lost one dog, two cats, a leg of lamb (cooked), ration books (World War II), critical phone numbers, a fur hat, an automobile, and, naturally, my temper. I even lost a child once, but he was returned by the floorwalker. I also lost my husband in the Moscow metro, but that’s another story.”

Once again, Campion touches a common chord, not only for our generation, but for all. Do you know anyone who doesn’t lose things?

I have lost everything Campion has lost except a cooked leg of lamb and a fur hat. I even lost my wife in London’s Victoria Station, but thanks to the fact that most Englishmen speak a kind of English, I was able to find her.

I lose my key ring at least once a week. Naturally, I am aware that I have lost the keys only when I need them; we often end up taking my wife’s car.

I have lost my swimming trunks, my coffee cup (full of coffee), my shoes, the book I am reading, the section of the newspaper I am reading, the TV remote-control box, my wallet, my hat.

Campion says that her husband, as a boy, lost a New South Wales stamp worth $800. I lost 40 shares of Times Mirror stock that had been sent me when the stock split. It was then worth about $2,500. I never found it. I have lost two shares of American Airlines stock I acquired years ago.

I go on losing ordinary things, but in recent years I have concentrated on losing correspondence. I receive many letters every week. I bring them home from the office in a briefcase, sit in my swivel chair in the living room and open every one, keeping in mind the lost stock.

I sort the personal letters into little piles, according to their subject matter, as possible column ideas. Once categorized as ideas, they go into a kind of limbo, never to be answered. Some are to be answered at once--when I can find the time. A few, if too ill-natured, are discarded. Toward all the others, my intentions are good.

I read every one. I treasure letters. They sustain me. Some, I place about the floor of my den in piles. Some go into bins on my desk. Theoretically, I know where every letter is, what every pile is about.

The next day I can’t find the ones I want. It seems that any I want to refer to, and put in a special place, are hopelessly lost. I spend hours every week going through piles of letters in search of one that I must have. Many times I have gone down to the row of trash barrels behind the garage and emptied them, one by one, searching among their contents for some critical piece of mail. Never have I found it in this way.

There is a law at work. Correspondence will be lost in direct ratio to its importance. Really important correspondence will never be found.

Campion says she and her husband have decided to quit looking for lost things. Cold turkey. “Life is too short to spend it hunting. Now we either wait for a lost object to turn up or make do without.”

I can’t do that. I was brought up to believe that if someone wrote to you, you answered. Alas, I have not always kept to that rule.

Every now and then I get an indignant letter from some person who has written me and failed to receive an answer. She will say, “ President Truman answered my letter,” or “ Governor Deukmejian answered my letter.”

Maybe he answers all his mail, but I’ll bet Gov. Deukmejian loses his car keys like the rest of us, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he had lost his wife.