I was recently in charge of moving 600 boxes filled with legal papers from one storage room to another. It was the second part of a move which started over a year ago when I coordinated my husband�s law firm�s move from the former Broad Street school last year to a house on Glen Street.

That was such a big event in itself that we asked the landlord for an extra year to figure out what to do with all the "closed" files, which are separate from the active files but which the attorneys still need to access on a regular basis.

Finding secure, weather-tight storage space for important papers in Glens Falls is an interesting proposition. I looked at a cramped basement on Elm Street, self-storage units off Quaker Road and a storage business which charges the customer each time they access any box. Nothing seemed to be quite right in dimensions or cost.

Then again, after 16 years of not paying rent for storage space for a 20� x 20� room, whatever they did next was bound to be a big change.

With only a week to go before our move date, I found just the right space. Three people in one day had pointed me toward Dick Emerson, the enthusiastic push behind the Union Square development at the intersection of Broad Street and South Street. When I met him and saw what he had to offer, I could tell why.

For one thing, he�s very personable. For another, he�s very accommodating. The space he showed me included a wall that I needed pushed back about ten feet. Within five business days we had a signed lease, the wall was pushed back and freshly drywalled, plus he�d exchanged a glass-front store door to a more secure metal one.

The room was cleaned and we were ready to move in.

It took a crew of four men, plus myself, (none of us professional movers), a total of ten hours last weekend to remove the boxes, dismantle shelves, load everything into a truck, transport them about a quarter mile and get everything unloaded into the new 500 sq. ft. space off Pine Street.

Every move has its mishaps and adventures. This one was no exception.

It started with the moving van. I�d hoped to get everything packed and moved in one trip so I reserved a 24 footer. When I went to pick it up Friday night, I was still concerned that there�d be a mix-up and we�d have to take a smaller one.

Turns out the 24 foot automatic was stuck. In trying to avoid a parked car, the attendant who was bringing the truck out to us swung a little too close to the only other 24 foot truck on the lot, a standard-shift. The two of them were cozied up, left rear wheel well to right front bumper, a lot closer than two trucks should be seen in public.

I drove off 45 minutes later with a 26 foot truck and a discount for the inconvenience of waiting.

It was my first time driving something that size. While I think I could get used to making tight turns, needing to actually use my side mirrors was distracting. The truck was so wide I felt like I was taking up three quarters of the road. This was scary at first but with practice, I can see how easy it would be to feel like a "queen of the road."

We got five out of eleven shelves loaded and dismantled before we quit that evening. In the morning I decided that we should get those shelves set up in the new place first. As they unloaded the boxes from truck to freight elevator to room, I figured out how to translate my graph paper plan to actual organized room. When the first truckload was empty, they went back to finish the loading and I stayed behind to put them on the shelves in (more or less) the right order.

That�s the trick to supervising: you have to think, as well as work. While we took a break for pizza at lunchtime, for most of the rest of the seven-hour day, we were all in fairly constant motion. My muscles paid for it for days afterwards, but didn�t want them to think I was slacking off.

There are two sets of stairs leading out of the old space�16 steps all together, the guys told me�so we couldn�t use wheeled dollies at that end of the job but we had two for the unloading. Unfortunately, the firm�s hand truck had been injured during last year�s move and didn�t survive one trip when put into service this year. It was the only casualty of the adventure. Everything else seemed to have made it in one piece.

The toll on the humans involved was another thing.

At the end of the day, my hands had been scraped and pinched, the muscles in my arms and legs were sore, and there were bruises all over my body. I got through the last hour or so by reminding myself that I�d be getting paid for my efforts.

It reminds me that desk jobs are a much easier way (physically, at least) to earn a paycheck.