The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has moved its circulation, and Washington Sunday edition editorial and advertising offices to Southpointe, giving us employees an opportunity to toss out junk and paperwork that's clogged our drawers for decades.

		Seldom Seen, David Templeton's whimsical perspective on life and times in and around Washington County, appears weekly in Washington Sunday.

As often happens, packing stirs the big vat of memories and mysteries, including why we had a toy dragon head covering the lunchroom door knob.

Our former address of 2453 West Pike St., Houston, (actually Meadow Lands in Chartiers) has given way to our new one at 701 Technology Drive, Canonsburg, PA 15317. Please send news releases, tips, criticisms and good wishes our way at the new address.

Our phone numbers and e-mail addresses remain the same, so keep us posted.

The first Washington Bureau office of the Pittsburgh Press opened in June 1984 along Route 19 in South Strabane. In 1992, the Pittsburgh Press opened a newspaper distribution depot at the intersection of Pike Street and Racetrack Road in 1992 in Bob Prince's former Gunner's Beer Distributing business location.

But the decision to use adult newspaper carriers and open a series of depots proved to be key issues in the 1992 Press strike that ended Jan. 2, 1993 when the Post-Gazette purchased the Press.

The Post-Gazette bureau remained in that location 12 years and enjoyed everything about Chartiers, except for traffic congestion at Pike Street and Racetrack Road, where it's dangerous to exit the parking lot.

The Post-Gazette has moved to Southpointe to combine the Meadow Lands and Bridgeville depots at the halfway point.

For now, the news and ad staffs are situated in a temporary office while the new ones are being built in the former AEG building -- the white Rock of Gibraltor in Southpointe's geographical center.

For now, we're busy unpacking.

But what was I thinking when I kept that plastic hand that was a Halloween gag gift, or that turkey-caller I bought from its inventor when I wrote about him years ago. The only way I'd ever call a turkey is if it had a phone number. But I did keep it to annoy colleagues with turkey babble.

There's no sane reason why I kept three bottles of white-out. It's the computer age, Dave, and we haven't had a functional office typewriter for 12 years. The only explanation for the white-out is a mental black-out.

Proving once again that I'm the crowned prince of chaos, the proud pack-rat of pandemonium, the jangling junk man of journalism.

I also was amazed while pawing through a file drawer that I had files labeled "bee venom" and "kitty litter." OK, one stings and one stinks, but their existence in my file drawer prompted an investigation.

What I soon realized was, the bee-venom file involved a man I'd interviewed years ago who treated his muscular dystrophy with daily bee stings. The kitty-litter file included a lady's lawsuit against a kitty-litter producer on claims a container of k-litter exploded in her face.

Behind our CB radio I found a sizable lump of coal. Now any reporter in Western Pennsylvania should own a lump. Ours is shiny, black and square. Other than those profound observations, I have no idea where it came from. But I'm keeping it as a visual aid in this era of longwall mining.

Of course, I still have small squares of knitting and quilting I did for various columns, and I'll keep those curiosities. I still have my red ribbon for winning second place for "taste" in the men's division of the Hickory Apple Festival's pie-baking contest three years ago. Hey, it's something to brag about.

And speaking of ribbons, I kept a whole box of blue ones we received when the Pittsburgh Press then Post-Gazette bought lambs over the years at the 4-H Livestock Auction at the Washington County Fair. I did the bidding and buying, and most of the lambs were reserve champions.

On my bulletin board remains a photocopied portrait of daughter Abbie, who stuck her head inside the office photocopier 10 years ago while visiting the office. She never could sit still. The result: an abstract portrait of her with a black face and white hair. I'm keeping that.

Then there are books we reporters buy or receive from anxious publishers. I still have "Sex, Sin & Mayhem," that details "Notorious trials of the 1990s," with a cover that features a guilty-looking photograph of who else but Tanya Harding.

My vast collection of worthless books also includes a flushing classic, "Ceramic Water Closets," or as we Americans call them, toilets. I bought it on Amazon.com when researching the topic for a column I wrote after buying a new toilet.

Lucky thing for me that Patty Kreamer, the organizational guru from Green Tree, helped me years back to organize my desk and forced me to toss useless files, junk and clutter. It made last week's move considerably easier. Her efforts years ago helped me to avoid becoming completely discombobulated.

And although we've been in our new digs a few days, the pack rat now has emerged as the unpacked rat. I still have six big boxes of things I packed and moved, compared with my neat colleagues' two boxes.

All of which got me to thinking about America's near-addiction to moving, be it people or companies. The money is always greener across the fence.

It's our animal instincts that prompt us to migrate, I suppose. Birds and rich people fly south each fall. Caribou and teenagers roam and stampede in herds to avoid predators and parents.

Our ancient forefathers and mothers were nomads, meandering everywhere and changing locations daily or seasonally to stay warm, find food and water, and avoid predators and enemies. We still do the same thing, but for different reasons: Family issues, jobs, housing.

Some people just have happy feet.

Research from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that the younger the adult, the more likely he or she is to move. More educated people tend to move longer distances.

Now that we've moved, the biggest problem for us Post-Gazette employees is figuring where to eat lunch, since that's the most important part of our work day.

Meanwhile, I'm still fumbling through boxes of junk -- bookends made from railroad spikes, a wooden goose, a hockey puck I've fiddled with on my desk for years, and enough yellow Post-it notes to paper the wall.

And I never even use Post-it notes.

So things are still a glorious mess, but it could be worse. I could have brought some explosive kitty-litter.