SDP Syndrome is manifested by the inability on the part of a subject to discard documents and/or artifacts of even the most trivial nature, a circumstance that can have serious consequences for apartment dwellers and others with living quarters of limited size. In the medical sense, one would be said to "suffer" from the syndrome. Being hopelessly afflicted, I prefer the term "revel."

As for space in which to indulge my infirmity, I was fortunate enough to acquire a roomy house before human limbs became a medium of exchange in the local real estate market. In other words, I got my house in 1951 without it costing me an arm and a leg.

So why am I perusing a Feb. 22, 1934, issue of the Los Gatos Mail-News and Saratoga Star? Because it was there. It and copies from quite a few more years are occupying a remote shelf in my basement. My dad had saved the papers because he had been editor for most of the 1930s and up to 1943, when he became Saratoga postmaster.

The first thing that struck me about the paper's appearance was the fact that the page width is a good five inches more than today's San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco Chronicle, both of which shrunk the size to save newsprint. Otherwise the paper has a very contemporary look.

What isn't contemporary are the prices in the grocery ads. Here's the Trade-Well Grocery offering small rib steaks at 20 cents a pound, coffee at 29 cents a pound and grapefruit at 25 cents a dozen. Of course, this was the bottom of the Depression, and wages were commensurate with the retail prices. I think my dad was making $25 or $30 a week, if that. Nineteen thirty-four was the year I entered the labor market at age 10, doing yard work for a family friend at 15 cents an hour.

In the issue for the prior week, Feb. 15, 1934, there was an item headlined "Watchman says few drunks in Saratoga." I quote here the first few paragraphs:

"Women of the road, too self-respecting to be called 'hoboes,' and yet wandering homeless from community to community, still exist, according to C.J. Norris, night watchman in Saratoga, who maintains his vigil from 6:30 p.m. until 7 a.m. every day. One of these women, apparently about 35, passed through Saratoga a few days ago.

" 'She seemed well-educated and quite refined,' said Norris to a Saratoga Star reporter. 'I asked her if she was bothered by the men on the road, and she said that, as a rule, the 'boys of the road' are gentlemen. For emergencies, she carried a bag full of pebbles, something like a blackjack, I suppose.'

"There have been surprisingly few drunks among itinerants, Norris reports. Occasionally, someone with a few drinks will start trouble, but a little firm action soon quiets them."

As a certified SDP Syndrome patient, I am also faced with an abundance of artifacts. When, for instance, will I ever have the occasion to use a mimeograph? Those are the machines that use a stencil cut on a typewriter—yes, I have several of those, the kind that you don't plug into a power source. Need a sheet of carbon paper? No problem. Got some right here. And when was the last time you heard the term "carbon copy"?

The phonographs present something of a storage problem. The console floor model, with crank sticking out the side, makes a nice table surface for vases. But those two table models, both with cranks, have less going for them. Of course, they're all for playing 78 rpm records, and I have several hundred of those, some going back to the early days of discs. Oh, yes, the cylinder records that preceded them? Funny you should ask—I've got a 1910 Edison cylinder machine and a hundred or so records.

(To my psychiatrist) Uh, Doctor, this couch is a bit lumpy. I just happen to have a good one in my basement I'd be glad to give you in payment of the fee.