Trash and treasure

Describe one habit that brings you joy.

My older brother Doug gestured with his hand like a salesman, grandly displaying the stuff on his garage floor. I could plainly see everything, but he evidently felt the need to add an extra flourish. 

“So pick through everything. Take anything you want,” he said.

It was from the same playbook as when we were kids. I just wasn’t limited to 50 lbs of his castoff junk then.

In June, I visited him and his family in Texas. He had mentioned that he “had a few things” from Pop that I might like. So I was expecting a pocketknife, maybe a picture or two. 

Instead, I was looking at half a dozen rows of toolboxes, cardboard containers filled with junk, woodworking stuff and loose hand tools. Doug had lugged it all out to Texas in a moving van when he was transferred with IBM. Now, in a touching moment of brotherly love, he was bequeathing those things he no longer wanted to me.

He went back inside the air-conditioned house with a cheery wave. “Let know if you have any questions.” As I got down on my hands and knees and began opening boxes, I had a flashback to our childhood.

Periodically, Mom would make us clean our rooms, and she didn’t mean just tidy up. She meant get rid of stuff we didn’t want any more. For both of us, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of was a painful process. Did I really want to get rid of this game? This model boat?

Doug hit on an ideal solution. He selected  one thing that he knew I really liked and used it as bait. 

“Hey, Dar,” he call. “C’mon over.”

He’d hold out the prized object. “You want this?” 

After a while, I knew the drill. “Yes,” I’d sigh.

He’d then stand to one side, and…using his grand salesman gesture…indicate a big pile of his old junk that he didn’t really want to get rid of, just find another storage place for; namely, my room. 

“OK,” he’d say. “You can have it… but you hafta take all this stuff, too.”

After an hour, Mom would check our progress. Gallant’s room was spic and span while Goofus’ room looked even worse than when we started. Doug knew I was sentimental about stuff and figured I’d find some place to shove it in case he ever wanted it back.

So here we were again, 50 years later, and it was the same quarterback keeper play. He’d seeded the boxes with enough cool stuff to pique my interest. The only problem was, I had flown and if I checked an additional bag, it couldn’t weigh more than 50 lbs.

I started going through the stuff and memories of Pop came flooding back. The oily smell of wrenches, a painting he’d made, model airplane stuff, a coping saw I’d last seen at 18… it all took me on a journey. I lost track of time and when I finally stood up, my knees were aching.

The door opened and Doug and his wife, and Sue, came out to see how I was doing. They had given me an old gym bag to put stuff in, and when they saw my pile, they immediately pointed out the obvious.

“Oh man, that’s never gonna fit in that bag.”

“And it’s gonna be way over 50 lbs.”

Doug and Paula shook their heads and returned to the air-conditioned house while Sue stood with me.

“Honey,” she said gently. “I know you wanna bring him home with you. But you can’t.” She looked at my pile, then me. “Let me help.”

For the next hour or two, she sat as I held up one thing after another and explained why it was special to me. They were all special, maybe I was trying to hang on to a chapter… or several chapters…of my life that were no longer here with these things, these inanimate objects that I’d probably never use.

I sighed as I pictured Doug inside with a bourbon and coke, feet up, his room clean minus one cool toy… and me out here trying to straighten my room with an avalanche of new junk during a Texas heat wave. When am I gonna learn?

As things went into the bag, I’d periodically hold it, stand on their bathroom scale and see how I was doing. When I got to 49 lbs, Sue firmly zipped the bag.

“That’s it,” she said. “Not another thing. Let’s go inside and cool off.”

Since I retired, I’ve become more pokey about getting things done. The Texas gym bag filled with Pop’s old stuff has been sitting on my workbench since we got home. Today I thought it was time. 

So with the right tunes playing…and with a few cold ones…I spent a pleasant hour taking out each thing and finding a special place for it. I felt like Pop was watching and nodding.

And while my garage may be a bit more like Goofus’ room from all those years ago, I think Pop understands what makes me tick.

Probably better than I do.

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