Hello friends,
I recently signed up for a nine day writing practice and the warm-up exercise brought me so much joy yesterday that I just had to share it.
We were invited to write about Winter Lights. To my delight, a memory from my past surfaced and sparked this story about candlelight.
How I Almost Deleted History
The thing I remember most about that day was arriving at work in the morning. Draped across my desk was a cloak of pink wax, stretching from one end to the other. It had pooled across the surface, forming large drip-like designs, hardened in place. My heart sank.
What had I almost done?
It was the late 1980s, and I worked in the Town Hall of our small community. Back then, smoking in the office was normal. I remember the stench vividly—and I remember, even more clearly, the empathy I felt for those who entered our office to do their municipal business. How it must have been for non-smokers as they stepped through the door, greeted by the horrible smell of stale smoke. It must have hit them like driving into a brick wall.
I was one of those smokers who lit up several times a day, often leaving my cigarette to burn in the ashtray right down to the filter before it extinguished itself or I bothered to put it out. Being on the phone or busy at the typewriter didn’t leave much time to actually smoke it. To camouflage the smell, I’d burn a scented candle. How naive I must have been to think a $1 chemically-scented candle could cover the lingering odor of stale smoke in the air. That naivety, I now realize, was entirely in step with many other age-appropriate misjudgments in my life.
You might have guessed by now, I forgot to blow out the candle at the end of my workday. The reality sank in quickly. As I looked at my desk in disbelief, what jumped into my awareness was how catastrophic this mistake could have been. Let me explain why.
I’d spent many hours sitting on the dusty floor of the Town Hall basement, poring over the Archives. Records dating back to the late 1800s were stored in battered boxes or tattered leather binders, resting on wooden shelves holding the weight of history. My coworkers and I often ventured down there, marveling at the richness of the past preserved in those pages. All of it—every fragile document and carefully penned record—could have been lost because of my near-fatal mistake.
I suspect that today, staff—much wiser and more informed about proper archival practices—have found safer ways to preserve those precious records. Thank goodness I didn’t end up as a statistic on their microfiche files, forever remembered as the Town Hall employee who nearly deleted history.
Hope you enjoyed reading about the day I almost deleted history!
"Wishing you a fun, joy-filled day sprinkled with delightful snacks of your own making."
