Dad’s Last Will and Passwords

Dear Children:

All my real estate, savings, and tangible assets are to go to all of you, and if you don’t want them, to Goodwill or the thrift shop. Or just find someone who looks like they need them. Some things that don’t look like much are more valuable than you might think, like the cowboy boots I wore in college. They are still good. I wore them at Woodstock!

The same is true for my digital estate. I left a fourteen-page list of passwords in that wooden box that Grandpa made himself—you know, the one he was always bragging about. I may have changed some of them since I last printed out the list, but you can probably figure them out. (I’m not writing anything down: the NSA!)

But here’s the idea. They are usually combinations of the first letters of titles of books that I was reading, or wanted to read, combined with numbers. I used the book about Vikings a lot, and the one about rattlesnakes, but also some lines from the poem about the captain that Grandpa liked.

Sometimes, for numbers, I use the license plate of my great uncle, the monsignor (he had one of the first cars in Rhode Island), and it had only four numbers, which Grandma was very proud of. You probably remember me talking about it. Sometimes I use the day Hank Williams died. (You can look it up.) Sometimes I throw in a symbol as well, because there are only 10,000 four-number combinations, and the NSA could figure out that in an instant, since they probably also know what books I’ve been reading, and what old country singers I venerate, in which case they already have my library password, which is my favorite character in all of literature (hint, not human) and the day Hank Williams died.

My Bank of America password is a bit unusual. It’s the name of the enormous tree that grew at the foot of our yard. Not the species, but the name we used to call it (two words), plus the nickname of my old college roommate (the one who still has hair) and the day Hank Williams died. All lowercase.

My Netflix account, which is worth accessing, because it knows what movies I Iike, and you might want to watch some of them at the wake, or the brunch after the cremation, or after the woodland frolic for my green burial, depending on how you decide to get rid of my earthly remains. Remember the song about El Paso I used to sing all the time? And you would tell me to stop, because I couldn’t carry a tune? Combine the last name of the guitar player who does the Spanish-sounding fill, with the first name of the American saber fencer who won a bronze Olympic medal in 1984 and the day Hank Williams died.

Here’s a good one, the Rancho Gordo Bean Club. You’ve had some of their recipes. You might remember the Christmas when all we had was brisket and beans because Mom and I left the bag with all the groceries at the co-op, and when we arrived at the Airbnb, you had to go out to a CVS to look for vegetables? Well, those were Rancho Gordo beans. Amazing, right?

So I’ve been on their waiting list to get into the club for years in order to get the special curated heirloom bean selections. I would hate for all that waiting time to be lost just because I died. So the password for that is the kind of wine you should drink with cassoulet (remember me telling you about that little hilltop town in the Dordogne where Mom and I had that amazing cassoulet?) combined with the vintage of the Chateau Latour I bought to be opened on Eleanor’s twenty-first birthday. Unfortunately, we never did that, because the wine went bad in the cellar. Hint: it’s almost the year of Eleanor’s birth, and would have been amazing if our basement didn’t have a dirt floor.

Oh, I forgot. You might need the key for the safe deposit box where I keep the wooden box that Grandpa made. It has the fourteen pages of the passwords, either written out or with more detailed hints.

It’s in the silverware drawer, right next to the corkscrew.