[Oe List ...] The Cross and sundry things . . .

[shahn]

After reading of "lost things" I just had to share a story of things found.

About 7 years ago I received a call from David St. John, a peer of mine from 
Student House days who now lives about 5 minutes away from me here in 
Bloomington, Indiana.  We don't have a lot of contact outside of family & 
community gatherings, so this call came as a surprise.  He said that he had 
something for me and asked if I could come to their house as soon as 
possible.

When I arrived, his daughters Alex and Emma (probably about 7 and 5 at the 
time) were all a-twitter with excitement about presenting this "gift" to me.

As it turns out, they had been to Chicago and had made a pass through the 
Kemper building basement in search of some item (a piece of artwork, I 
think?) that Wendell & Shirley St. John had lost track of years ago.  As 
they searched through the years' worth of accumulated stuff, they came 
across a footlocker with my name on it.

The bottom line is that this footlocker contained odd and varied treasures 
of mine which I'm sure I hadn't seen since I was 21, about 20 years earlier. 
It contained high school year books and grade reports (I was not as good a 
student as I thought I'd been!), a few baby shoes, my 8th grade autograph 
book signed by all my class mates (as was the tradition in 1973), my ACT 
scores ... all of this along with some true junk.

On one hand it was all just "stuff" ... junk that I probably never would 
have thought about again for the rest of my life.  On the other hand, it was 
truly found treasure ... remnants from earlier times, reminders of people 
and places, tangible evidence of life events.  What a delight it was to have 
this treasure returned to me.  And what joy it gave David and his family to 
be able to present it to me.  That just added to the fun of it all.

Have you been to the Kemper building basement lately?! :)

Shelley Hahn