Five knickknacks that have followed me from job to job and office to office for the last 20 years

I'm always interested to see how people who work in offices (at their place of business or remotely at home) decorate their desks, cabinets and bookshelves.

Photos are most common, it seems, and for good reason. I have a photo of Terry and me on my desk that I look at often and that serves to remind me why I do what I do 40-50 hours a week for the Materion Corporation.

But beyond the pics of kids, spouses and significant others, there are other little bits of office decor I always find fascinating. They provide some insight into what people value, what they do with their free time, and in general what their personalities are like.

I have worked in an office setting since 1988, if you want to call newspaper newsrooms "office settings." They are unlike traditional business offices in that they're generally loud, sometimes frenetic, and usually filled with what could most politely be described as irreverent conversation. I worked in newsrooms from '88 to '96 before moving into more genteel offices.

Since 2002 I've had something like 10 different offices at six companies. Each time I've switched jobs or undergone an office move, there is a core set of items I've smothered in bubble wrap and carried from place to place. They have stayed with me for most or all of these past two decades, and I can't imagine an office without them.

Draw whatever conclusions you will about me from these longtime office knickknacks:

The Laughing Buddha

In December 2005, I spent two full weeks in China meeting with journalists to pitch story ideas on behalf of the clients I represented as a vice president at Cleveland public relations firm Dix & Eaton. I picked this up at a Shanghai market for what I'm sure was a criminally low price, as the dollar was particularly strong against the Chinese yuan at the time. There's something about him that makes me happy, and I've always made a point of putting him in parts of my office where I'm sure to see him.

The Mexican Porcupine

Speaking of Dix & Eaton, about a year and a half after I joined the firm, we moved from Downtown Cleveland's Erieview Tower maybe a half-mile away to the 200 Public Square building. As people were cleaning out their Erieview offices, there was a table where you could discard stuff you didn't want to take with you, just in case others might be interested in it. This little guy was placed on that table (by whom I don't know) and I snatched him up for no other reason than I thought he was cool. A few of the toothpick quills have broken over the years, but he's still going strong and watches me all day long as I work.

The Globe

I always wanted a globe, and one Christmas Terry gave me this little beauty. It serves no practical purpose, but then again, what true knickknack does? Actually I take that back. In 2019, a day before we were scheduled to fly to Australia for a cruise, I spun the globe to North America then spun it to Australia, and it was the first time I realized how truly distant the two continents are from one another. It made the 15-hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney a little more understandable, so I guess the globe provided some benefit in that one instance.

The Puck

I am an ardent fan of the National Hockey League's Ottawa Senators. Have been since they came back into the league (following a 70-year absence) in the early 90s. I think I bought this puck and cheap plastic display case in Niagara Falls when I took one of our kids there way back when. It's a good conversation piece when someone asks the valid question, "How does a lifelong Clevelander become a fan of the Ottawa Senators?"

The Appalachian Trail Rock

Some years ago, my neighbor Tim did some hiking on portions of the Appalachian Trail. Knowing that a through-hike of the trail is a likely-never-to-happen bucket list item of mine, he very graciously brought back a rock for me, just so I could have a little piece of the 2,150-mile pathway I would love to traverse at some point before I get too old. I always thought that was really nice of him, and it serves as a reminder that we all need to have dreams.

I would have enjoyed cruising more if there hadn't been a big boat involved

 

A couple of years ago, Terry and I went on the first (and so far only) cruise of our lives. It was an Australian cruise, and the places we visited, things we saw, and people we met really made it the trip of a lifetime.

The one problem we both had, though, was a fairly significant one: We got seasick. The constant motion of the MS Noordam was such that we spent most of the first night and all of the first full day of the voyage in our cabin feeling less than stellar.

We eventually found some relief when a visit to a Tasmanian pharmacy introduced us to TravaCalm, a motion sickness medicine that definitely helped. We also chewed ginger gum, and Terry wore a pressure point bracelet that further stabilized the situation.

Speaking for myself, though, I can say that while things got better, I never fully shook that feeling of dizziness and slight nausea.

Granted, the Bass Strait between Tasmania and the Australian mainland had rougher water than you're likely to encounter in, say, the Caribbean. But still...I'm not sure I want to try the cruise thing again any time soon.

I preferred our dry-land stops to our full days at sea, that's for certain.

I envy the folks I refer to as "Cruise People," who structure their vacations around cruises. They love the cruise life and never seem to feel even a hint of seasickness.

Given that I have to take Dramamine even upon entering an amusement park, I'm guessing I'll never join their ranks.

Anzac Day and other holidays you didn't know about

I just looked at the calendar and noticed that today is Anzac Day.

But of course you already knew that.

Your calendar probably doesn't tell you that today is Anzac Day. Mine does.

That's because it's an Australian calendar, given to us by our Australian friends, the Jones family.

We love the Joneses. They're wonderful people. Their daughter, Chelsea, is coming to stay at our house for a few days this summer.

When Chelsea arrives, it will mark exactly the second time any of us has ever actually met a member of the Jones family in person. The other time was a couple of years ago when the whole family (all seven of them) toured the U.S. in a gigantic R.V. and spent a weekend with us when passing through Ohio.

For the most part, though, we only know them electronically. My wife met Kerri Jones through a church-related email discussion list, and the relationship grew even closer with the advent of Facebook.

Now we consider them to be very close friends, even though we hardly ever see them. Because as you know, Australia is farther away than Saturn.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, today is Anzac Day, according to our Australian calendar.

I actually know who/what the Anzacs were, but only because of my strangely intense interest in the First World War. Otherwise, I would have guessed that they were some sort of insect ("We had a terrible infestation of Anzacs, but the exterminator was able to get rid of them.")

"Anzac" stands for "Australian and New Zealand Army Corps," a military force that fought the horrible Gallipoli campaign in Turkey against the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and 1916. It was a badly conceived operation, and as is usually the case in such instances, it was the poor infantry on the ground who had to pay the price for strategic errors made in some staff meeting room thousands of miles away.

Anzac Day is observed every April 25th to remember those young men who fought at Gallipoli almost a full century ago. It's actually quite a solemn occasion in Australia and New Zealand.

Seeing as the majority of the readers of this little blog are American, I'm guessing 99% of us didn't know that. We in this country have a hard time understanding or even caring about anything that happens outside of our neighborhoods, let alone half a world away.

But then again, we already have quite a list of holidays and observances here that makes us all a little immune to, well, holidays and observances.

Anzac Day is not our holiday, but Arbor Day is. That's tomorrow. I know it has something to do with trees, and that you're supposed to plant one, but that's the extent of my Arbor Day knowledge.

Armed Forces Day this year is Saturday, May 18th. Which is of course not to be confused with Memorial Day nine days later when we watch parades, eat candy, cook out in our backyards, and vaguely remember that the day has something to do with soldiers.

Then there's also:

• Parents Day (July 28th...really)
• Senior Citizens Day (Aug. 21st)
• Grandparents Day (Sept. 8th)
• Leif Erikson Day (Oct. 9th)
• Boss' Day (Oct. 16th)
• Pan American Aviation Day & Wright Brothers Day (both Dec. 17th)
• Dog Vomit Appreciation Day (Dec. 20th)

I only made up one of those. The rest are real holidays. For better or for worse.

The holiday I dislike the most is Sweetest Day, which is held on a Saturday every October.

I assumed Sweetest Day was a universal holiday, but apparently not. Wikipedia suggests that it's celebrated primarily in the Midwestern U.S. and "mostly in Cleveland."

Why exactly do we in Cleveland get stuck with this fake holiday? Because it was thought up in the 1920s by a group of Cleveland-area candymakers.

Not that they would profit by the existence of such a holiday, of course. No sir, that was just a coincidence.

Terry and I don't celebrate Sweetest Day. If I try to buy her anything that day, she yells at me for wasting money.

Which is one of the reasons why I love her. I think I'll save that Sweetest Day money and wait to buy her something instead on Leif Erikson Day.