Worthy to Print Column | One Man’s Junk Is Another Man’s Treasure

I spent most of the day on Saturday cleaning out my garage, and I don’t know if I will finish before the weekend is over. Funny how I keep watching the detritus get taller and taller. I keep telling myself that I will be cleaning out all the small pieces of my truck. Then the weekend comes and I find all sorts of things that I should do before the weekend is over. It has taken a great deal of work just to get all the parts into my garage, and now I have to work hard to clean out enough stuff to get enough room to park the cars.

I told my love when we moved here that I wanted us to have a place to park our cars out of the weather. Sure my truck is old and can take a lot of punishment, but this is the first place we have moved to where I can park the truck and her car into the garage. Everything lasts a lot longer if you can park your car out of the weather.

We had been planning on a yard sale in order to move some of the extra things we had bought when we moved here from Salinas. The boys had their motorcycles and I had a trailer to carry their bikes to the races that we tried to race in once a month. The races were over in the San Joaquin Valley and we had to leave the house very early to be there for the first race. I couldn’t have been prouder of the boys as they really embraced the trophies that they won.

Of course, I didn’t win many trophies but had a good time watching my boys. I could leave a little addition to the fun of watching them fall and get back up and occasionally win the race. I particularly remember one race my son Austin was in. He was in the lead and just as he turned the corner, he disappeared, only to pop up a few seconds later out of the mud. Thinking about it now, it’s funnier than it was that day. To say the least, he was not happy.

By the way, the kids that raced over in the other valley must have been taking lessons because of the wins they made. I tried to give Reed and Austin a little help by taking their bikes to this guy up in San Jose who builds race engines for guys like me. I was not going to go out on the track and let everyone know I was much better at helping my boys than I was in winning. Over the summer, the boys discovered that just having a fast bike was not going to get them a bunch of trophies. Once they figured that out, they did much better on the track. In fact, they started winning races.

As some of you know, I was in the regular Army with enough time in combat to retire. While in the Army, I discovered a good way to get out of some of the more mundane jobs, not the jobs where you get shot but where I taught soldiers how not to get shot. I was presented, upon release, a series of plaques for the service I had given the Army. They are not very big and truly have little value unless you are the recipient of said trophies. But to me, they were really badges of valor. I polished each one about once a month.

Then I got married to the Angel I am now playing house with. I know she loves me and the children we begat, but she truly didn’t have any use for those dust-gathering prizes. She was kind to me and made sure I was happy with the position of my prizes. Then she boxed them up and put them, along with other toys and trophies my sons and I had won into a sturdy box and placed them in our storage unit for the rest of our … well, you get the message.

I already told you about the boys and their desires to win, but I should point out going to the races with my sons were high points in my life. It was wonderful to see them holding a trophy that might not have cost more than a few dollars but you couldn’t have bought for a million dollars.

Why all this explanation about the trophies? Well, we are planning to have a garage sale to point out the items we no longer need or want. We will also offer back to my sons their trophies, which their mother has been hounding them to take away for awhile.

Well, here we are. Sorting through all the “stuff” you accumulate over a period of 35 years. I know there is that old adage, “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.” But right now I can’t tell the difference. The motorcycles are gone, and the trophies are a reminder of the good times I shared with the boys who are now men. But going through it all is also a reminder of a life that I cherish. 

Lorraine keeps telling me to stop putting stuff in the keep box and move it to dump or donate. But I can’t get rid of that canister where I used to put coins in or that old fountain that I’m sure I will eventually hook up. Gonzales is my home and hopefully someone will appreciate the treasures that I hold dear.

God Bless.