Purge!

When I was in college, I worked as a lab tech (at first summers, and then throughout the year) for a wonderful British professor of organic chemistry at the Johns Hopkins Med School. He was not only an excellent chemist, but a great teacher as well...subscribing to the Bear Bryant School of teaching: if it turns out well, then all credit goes to the player. If it turns out badly, it's the coach's fault. Anyway, C.H.Robinson was very generous with credit and quite sparing in his blame. And I deserved more of the latter than the former, I regret to say.

In any event, what brought Dr. Robinson to mind was one of his quirky habits: when the lab became too messy to deal with, he would barrel in the door one morning at full speed, announcing that we were having a PURGE. Glassware was washed and returned to cabinets, lab benches cleared, remains of old experiments poured down the drain. Forgotten tea mugs (and he had a quantity of those!) were located, drained, washed and bleached to pristine state. In short, the lab was restored to a state where things could be found, not only where they belonged, but in a usable state of cleanliness. Even lab coats were not spared. Concentrated, focused activity always produced the desired results. In retrospect, I think Robbie's 'purges' taught me more about doing science (and doing life) than any class I ever took. Mess around as much as you like with experiments, try new things, explore all the weird little corners of the subject, but when you come right down to needing an answer, FOCUS!!! And work your butt off.

The reason for this memory? We are having our own purge at our house. The top floor has reached maximum disorder, and chaos has started the trip down the stairs, invading the second floor--the landing first, then creeping into the bedroom and sitting area. The only thing standing between us and total disaster is one flight of stairs.

So we are setting ourselves the Sisyphean task of purging the third floor and all that has descended therefrom. The boxes are at the ready; the center of our storage space has been cleared; we have a surplus of black Hefty bags to load with discards. We have even sought out names of movers that will come to pack and load the detritus that we deem necessary for life as we know it, and transport it to storage. The first wave of labeled boxes has been moved today: a full jeep-load. This one is bound to take more than one day, but if we maintain our focus, and are willing to expend the requisite effort (and dollars), we should be able to transform our pig-sty selves into the clean and efficient household to which we aspire. Excelsior!