We're cleaning out the basement--have been for days. When you clean out basements, you come across a lot of things when you dig into boxes in said basement.
Boxes contain more than physical things. They contain treasures.
They contain memories.
They contain links to the past.
Tonight, we came upon a notebook buried in a box. Back when it was stowed, I'm sure we thought we ought to save it. After all, when homeschooling four kids, you never know when you'll need a notebook.
Turns out, we didn't. During Back to School sales, notebooks cost mere pennies and we bought a lot of them, but the one we put in a box in the basement was never used.
Well, that's not entirely true. It was used...
About seventy years ago.
That's when my mom jotted down some shorthand.
My mom--like most people's moms--was amazing. She helped put my dad through college working as a secretary. I knew she knew shorthand. She even showed me some of the symbols once. Of course, I thought it was interesting, but not necessary. After all, no one used shorthand anymore (and that was probably in the 1970s when I thought that...). But back in the day, it was a valued skill.
Humans are amazing. They adapt. Years ago when someone needed to transfer a message from one person to another, shorthand was used. Sure, there are faster methods today, but for the time, it worked. Just like my father's slide rule (an amazing piece of technology no longer used...) or my father's drafting equipment. Brilliant for its time.
Yes, I came across an ancient script. Had someone found this notebook in a box a few centuries from now, would they know how to decipher it?
Good question.
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