Old Men and Their Junk

Old men love their stuff. It is gold to them but to others it is rust and dust. Coffee cans and peanut butter jars filled with assorted nuts, bolts, screws, and nails. A tube of hardened super glue he feels has another drop.

In the corner of his shed are several bird’s nests of bailing twine for when the world may end. On the shelf is a Dollar General yellar bag filled with strips of old Hanes t-shirts that are his go-to grease rags. There’s a row of nails with greasy baseball caps that a vagabond wouldn’t dare to wear.

At the edge of the woods in overgrown weeds is his own private junk yard. A wide array of assorted metal feeds the rust. There are a few frames of lawn chairs whose fabric has long since evaporated by UV rays. Pieces of roofing metal that are not long enough to cover a doghouse but reserved for that special purpose that no one can imagine. A two-foot piece of angle iron that one day will be just right. A Murray lawnmower that will never hum.

Above his workbench is an ancient hub cap that reminds him of a beloved car. License plates from 1964 and on that chronicles his driving days that his young’uns will one day stop. There is a space where a certain outdated calendar of a purdy girl once hung but had to be removed when he started living for Jesus.

His yard tools hang on 16 penny nails. Propped up in the corner is a set of posthole diggers with one handle too short. He has an ax that has ‘went through’ four handles representing three generations—you do the math. There is a hoe his great-uncle gave him that belongs on the wall at Cracker Barrel.

In his house, in his “chest-a-drawer,” handed down by his grandma, is a King Edward cigar box filled with museum-grade treasures. Leading the parade is the Case knife given to him by his granddaddy on his mother’s side. It was whetted so many times the blade is half its original width. It has a patina on it that represents apples pealed, sticks whittled, and pigs castrated on the same day.

Also in the box is a genuine silver dollar, a Kennedy half dollar, and two buffalo nickels. There is a bus ticket to Texas to work that he never used. A ribbon bound lock of blond hair from a girl in the ninth grade he swore to grandma that he couldn’t even remember her name.

Also in the cigar box is a stainless-steel government issued neck chain with his two dog tags, a P-38 can opener, and a small green cross woven from the yarn of a GI sock from his time in Nam. If you were peeping from a cracked door, you could see him dangling it from his hand with a far-off look in his eyes.

In the closet he calls his own, hanging from a half-inch plumber’s pipe pretending to be a closet rod are some shirts bought when Nixon had to resign. The collars are ‘plum wore through.’ They ain’t been worn in decades but one never knows when he might decide to paint the back porch.

On the end table next to his worn-out recliner is his best of all treasures. It is a well-worn Bible. The leather-bound cover is now more binding than leather. The page edges are stained by working hands and the words inside stained by a tender heart. The corners are dog-eared by where he last read—over and over again. Words and verses underlined by blue Bic pens. A scribbled note of a date when Bro. So-&-So preached a message he never wanted to forget but did. Then the sacred text of John 3:16 highlighted in yellar from his wife’s new-fangled pen. It is the verse he based his life on and the one that gives him peace and hope when he thinks of dying.

One day down the road, they will bury the old man. A few days later they will go through his stuff. A granddaughter will say, “Why did he keep this old thing?” His grandson will say, “Can I have his knife to remember him by?” Grandma will silently and secretly throw away the lock of blond hair. A man in a thrift store will pay two dollars for something that was beyond price to the one gone on.

No worries, the old man took flight with a band of angels. He has no use for the prized possessions anymore. He was wise enough to send a few treasures ahead to glory.

In his own words, “The widow I took a bag a groceries to. The boy who had no daddy, I paid a way for. My friend at work, who I paid a light bill for when he was sick and drew no check. The hitchhiker out of luck who I promised to take him as far as I was going but took him all the way to his Mama’s house.”

Old man, when you get to where you are going kiss the bruised feet of Jesus and greet the angels with a howdy. Fly high old man! Things on earth slowly go to rust and dust but eternal is the gold you run on now!

Yours on the Journey,
Harry L. Whitt

Note: The mystery of the old man is a compilation of those I have known, the old man that I am, and those who I dream about.