I'm a big believer that things happen "for a reason." When I worked for Bill Lederer when he lived in Peacham, he often remarked that "there are no accidents." If I understood him correctly, he believed if you missed your plane or forgot an appointment, it was because subconsciously you didn't want to take that trip or meet with that person. There was a lot more to his theory, of course, he loved to expound on all sorts of stuff, but I often think about it when I do something dumb that results in an "accident," and all too often I realize it probably wasn't an accident, but happened for a reason - I just need to acknowledge it and move on.

Take today, for instance. I had my day pretty well planned. I had a heap of work I thought I wanted to do that included scanning, organizing and filing ancient documents. I even started sorting some by date - 1794, 1800, 1804, 1817, etc., but I was having a hard time making out the writing (some of those old guys couldn't spell worth a tinker's darn) and when my computer alerted me an e-mail had arrived, I was delighted for the interruption. Jamie was asking for some information on the camp from a few years back, which led me to haul out a file I hadn't looked at for at least half a dozen years, and turned out some of its contents were way older than that. Like the papers on my old 1973 Opal sports sedan. I loved that little car, I called it a "poor man's corvette" - it was blue, a two-seater, although I'd been known to load it with two or three extra teenagers back in the day . . . but back to my story.

I found what I was looking for in the files, but the discovery of the owner's manual for the Opel led to sorting through the rest of the files. To say it was a trip down memory lane would be an understatement. Here's the thing. Today was my father's birthday. He would have been 105. He was 89 when he died. It is also the day two of my cousins were born. I thought it was interesting that in those old files, there was information about my father and mother that I remembered saving, and also things long forgotten - a scribbled note, "Bob's phone number in Boston," a copy of a 1977 credit card slip for gasoline at 58 cents a gallon - and then I found a strange box, and inside a blue and green plaid ribbon with a pretty pin attached. Above the gold fringe was the inscription: "The Ladies of Clan Gordon, Barre Vt." That was a complete surprise and I don't remember ever seeing it before. It probably belonged to one of my aunts, and of course I immediately thought of my cousin, Corrine, daughter of one of the MacAllan girls who lived in East Barre, and whose birthday it is today. I should have called her immediately, but time flew by and before I knew it the day was gone.

I guess you could say I found all those things accidentally, but I suspect everything that happened to lead me to them was contrived. Probably by my subconscious (avoiding dull work, maybe?) or maybe one of my dear, frugal, rosy-cheeked Scotsmen ancestors was reaching out, vying for equal nostalgia time. However it all came about, I'm glad I took the day off and contemplate some of my own family history. Tomorrow I'll tackle more of Cabot's again.