Getting outta town

Winchester kept a grip on us much longer than we hoped it would.  Ironic, isn't it?  We'd lived there 24 years, and despite the fact that it is a quite charming town, I was never entirely comfortable there. Why, you might ask? Not comfortable in suburban heaven?  Well, I was always an outsider, always the other, a city kid: the liberal Democrat (some might say radical), the lover of diversity, not only of people but of offerings, opportunities, opinions; I was also one of the first people who challenged the quality of the highly-rated school system and made waves about racist behavior at the private clubs. I carved out a role of being "a thorn in one's side," and could be counted on to question the status quo and the lust for homogeneity. Made me very popular.

Well, to return to the moving saga, we were originally going to leave on the 11th, then the 12th. Around 9 p.m. on the 12th, with our bed, chairs, and almost everything else packed in the U-Haul pod and our cars except trash, we decided to go to the Comfort Inn in faraway Woburn, a couple of miles up the road! We kept sight-seeing to a minimum (!) and just flopped into bed, exhausted.

Friday we went back to our house early and worked almost the entire day again, "redding up" as my Scottish grandmother used to say--cleaning, tidying, tossing out the dregs. This, mind you, after having had three yard sales, numerous Ebay and craigslist sales, furniture and book give-aways to friends, and about 8 trips to the used bookstore in Burlington (Michael became so well known there for his pickup truck loads of books that they cheerfully greeted him and directed him to the loading dock in the rear). It's beyond embarrassing, if you think about it--I'd really rather not. The problem, really, is being literate, you see: if we weren't, we would have had pristine rooms sans books, papers, and magazines.  And let's not even get into the graduate work, the theses, and so on.

Determined to leave on Friday night, we booked a room in Auburn and left yet more stuff for 1-800-JUNK and a cleaning person who helped to ready the house for the market. Finally an hour and a half away from Winchester, we were on our way at last.