FEBRUARY 3, 2021 – Today a truck with an onboard machine will appear in our driveway to shred decades’ worth of paper. In the pile is every sheet containing an SSN or bank/investment account number.
A few weeks ago, I’d experimented with a primitive alternative. It didn’t go well. In the first place, fire is time-consuming. Only crumpled paper burned, so I had to gather lots of firewood and get it red hot before meaningful quantities of flat paper burned. Worse, it yielded an awful odor—the release of harmful chemicals (not to mention carbon from the wood).
I’d considered two other alternatives: garbage and recycling, since our digital financial information is more susceptible to thievery than our paper versions are. I was diverted, however, by the irrational fear that someone would riffle through (a) a paper Mount Everest inside a recycling plant, or (b) compacted household refuse before it was dumped into a burner or landfill.
A sense of security will be achieved when a loud machine shreds our papers. With a “certificate of destruction” (read, “marketing ploy”) in hand, we won’t worry about an info-thief poking through our compacted garbage or climbing Mr. Everest with a paper-pick.
Shredded with the paper, however, will be an accessible historical record.
A decade ago I found tons of paper in my parents’ attic. Dad saved . . . everything . . . including tax returns going back to the beginning of time and cancelled checks dating back decades. All were neatly stored, labeled, and organized. Curious, I pulled out my parents’ tax return for 1948. Actually, it was the practice version of the filed tax return. The size of the figures was a reminder that the price of a loaf of bread back then was probably the proverbial “dime.”
The thousands of canceled checks reminded me of Dad’s cartoon-making when I was in third grade. He took a paper tablet and drew a stick figure on a corner of each sheet. On each successive page, he drew the same stick figure but with arms and legs in a slightly different position. Then with his thumb he pulled up the corner of the tablet and let the pages fall, one-by-one, in quick succession. As the paper fluttered, his stick figure jumped to life.
Canceled checks, I thought, would make perfect cartoon paper. As I recalled Dad’s technique, the checks fluttered in release from my thumb drawn over the end of a stack. Inadvertently, I created a mini-documentary. Instead of a stick figure doing jumping jacks, what sprang forth was my parents’ household budget in 1958. In larger view, I caught a glimpse of the economic life of Middle America: Peterson Shoes, Dr. Spurzem, Dodell’s Paint, Carl’s Café, Matheny’s Market, Trinity Episcopal Church. None of the payees was a chain or franchise (unless you counted the church).
In a paperless world, what will future generations know about us? Not to worry! Our most important information will be safe and secure inside a small box of unidentifiable objects—unreadable thumb drives marked, “Back-ups.”
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
