I hold up my pants with a belt that my grandfather once wore. I never noticed it when it was Bumpa's, but it was his. And every time I put it on, I think of him.

Memories flood back, too, whenever I store a photo away in one of the Whitman's Sampler chocolate boxes I use for that purpose. I have upwards of 15 of those candy boxes, for every Christmas season for years, Maynard Brown would make a special trip to Plattsburgh to buy Samplers for all the women in our family. He even fulfilled that tradition at age 98, just a few months before a fall put him in the hospital and ended his mobility. He died in 2006, two months after his 99th birthday.

Those boxes are just things; the belt just a strip of leather with a metal fastener at the end. And yet they help keep treasured memories alive.

SILENT MOVIES

There's a reality show called "Clean Sweep" that I watch sometimes, seeking inspiration to organize my home. A team of "experts" helps a couple get control of a household gone wild, emptying entire rooms and urging the homeowners to rid themselves of everything that's not absolutely necessary. The rejects are sold at a yard sale, and to encourage top sales, husband and wife are each charged with selling half the goods. A beloved item of each (I recall a wedding dress one time) is held out as a prize for whomever makes the most money.

The loser loses his or her item, regardless of sentimental value.

On one show, the "experts" made a family give up a collection of 16mm home movies.

That tore it for me. There's part of me that wants to empty my own house out on the lawn and purge it of unnecessaries. But home movies and such are family history. They should never be tossed out.

Years ago, when my daughters were still in grade school, I borrowed the home movies my father had made with great delight when I was small. My sister Steff and I screened the productions in her apartment, thrilled to see our small selves on Christmas mornings and dressed in frilly dresses and patent-leather shoes for birthday parties. Finally, my daughter Britt had had enough of our exclamations of delight.

"You like those kids better than us!" she wailed.

The home movies of my youth then had another generation of meaning.

Steff and I had them put on video for everyone one Christmas, then a few years ago, I had them put on DVD. Britt's children's children will see those silent films.

GRANDPA'S SNOW PANTS

But not all tangible treasures last forever.

My other grandfather, Arsene Tremblay, died in 1978. He and I were very close, our friendship cemented by our mutual love of horses. My best summer ever was when, at 14, I arose at 6 a.m. to go to the Clinton County Fairgrounds with Grandpa to exercise his harness race horses. We cleaned stalls, jogged Great Moment and Rebel Land Jill, bathed them, wrapped their linimented legs and ate a mundane lunch of bologna sandwiches and chips that somehow tasted ambrosial, especially washed down with warm Coca-Cola.