I continue to go through shoe boxes of ephemara, trying to figure out what is worth saving, and what I should throw out.

For instance, does anyone want a ticket to a Celtics playoff game from 2008? The Celtics were the champions that year, but I can’t tell from the ticket (which still has the stub attached) the date of this game, or what team the Celtics played.

Okay, what about this from the Queen Elizabeth 2?

I have never been on the QE2, and have no idea why I have this. Do I just chuck it? It’s sort of neat, no?

I have not been in the balcony of the House of Representatives since 1958. But I do have many tickets, like this one from 2013-2014.

Again, in or out?

On the more exotic side, how about this invoice from the Beijing Tongli Aviation Service Company of CAAC?

Now, I have not once been to China, so what is this, why do I have it, and should I just tear it up? Or should I write a thriller based on the story behind it?

Remember Bill Clinton? It has been 33 years since his first term inauguration, and I was there. This is how I got in.

South Standing. I obviously did not warrant a chair.

And then I have this card, which I will put in my “Funny, you don’t look Jewish” file.

But enough of this. I have an opera to watch and I don’t want to miss the first act, which started 43 years ago.

What a waste of a blog post, you say. Especially since so many more important things are going on. You are correct, but thinking about opera in Vienna in 1983, in the long run, may be equal in importance to whatever the Supreme Court decides about birthright citizenship in 15 minutes. In the long run.

Remember the novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz, the post-apocolyptic novel where the only piece of evidence of a prior civilization was a piece of paper, found buried, containing a grocery list? It was, all knew, the clue to understanding this extinct civilization. You just never know.