| We live in a world in which far too many people think that by changing the label they
change reality. Some folks call me a clutterer par excellence. At seventy-nine it
seems that my cluttering nature (my second nature) is set in concrete. So it is
easier to change the label (although I am confident it will not deceive my wife) to an
accumulator but not yet an Abraham Lincoln. To understand this one has to understand
something about Lincoln's office.
"As Speed said, Lincoln's habits were 'regularly irregular'. "On one wall loomed a huge black stain, marking the place where one law student had hurled an inkstand at another one's head - and missed.
I have books all over the house. Mary's mother said that if she married J.D. she would sit on books, eat on books and sleep on books. I sometimes reshuffle chaos. The way I locate something I have mislaid is to cease looking for it and look for something else. Often I then find it. I have a box labeled "File Soon: 1966." Today is
November 19, 1994. I think I know what room this box is in but I may be mistaken. I have
many filing cabinets full of materials, but for years I have had no office help and I put
some materials in different stack trays of which I have many. In at least one case, there
are 17 trays in one stack. As far as I know no seeds have sprouted anywhere in any of my
offices.
 |
"Mrs.
Lincoln seldom went to the office; but when she did, she was shocked. She had reason to
be: the place had no order, no system things were piled about everywhere. Lincoln
tied up one bundle of papers and labeled it thus: 'When you can't find it anywhere else,
look in here.' 
"The office was seldom swept and almost never scrubbed. Some garden
seeds that were lying on top of the bookcase had started to sprout and grow there, in the
dust and dirt." (Dale Carnegie, Lincoln the Unknown, Forest Hills, N.Y.;
Forest Hills Publishing Co., 1932, p.80) 
Lincoln sometimes had some of his law papers in his hat which he wore to the court house
when a trial was in process. If I ever become Lincolnized more than I am now, I don't
think I shall "wear" documents in my hat since the only had I have is a straw
hat I bought this summer in case I was in the sun for a long time at a flea market. I
don't think the total time I've worn it amounts to 45 minutes. 
