THE JUNK DRAWER.

Everyone admits to having a junk drawer. A place to store something of a temporary nature, or something you don’t want to toss, but what good is it to keep? It ends up in the junk drawer. I have too many junk drawers.

My daughter-in-law came for the weekend since “the guys” meaning my sons, and old high school friends have this big mega bash every year over super bowl weekend. They play poker, drink a lot of beer, golf on Sunday morning…well you get the picture. So Laurie and I poked around my junk drawers for stuff for a project she is working on. The picture was taken after we reduced the quantity of junk in the drawers by half.

It was really nice because I cleaned out a large bag of crochet yarn that I’ll never use.  I took out most of my button collection;  It filled three large cigar boxes. Ribbons and badges from Community Club events will hopefully find a home in the local museum. Much of it represented past volunteer activities and some travel items like the museum patches above. Whoever heard of such obscure museums as the National Skating Museum?  The Cartoon Art Museum. I’ve been to an Eye Glass museum, a Bait Museum, a Knife Museum, a Funeral Museum, Bead Museums…   On the road with Jim, I (we)  visited every museum that came to our attention, no matter the subject or size. I wonder sometimes,  how many I’ve visited?

Among the buttons were whirley-gigs  I made when two young nieces and a nephew came to visit for a week one summer. I also taught them to play Hide The Button.

My mother visited Pope John Paul II when he visited San Francisco so many years ago. I have her holy cards, relics and a purported piece of the crucifixion cross; a metal from every California Mission she visited and more. My intention was to make a collage with her things. I’m  inspired anew.

I couldn’t hold in two hands the number of metal pins I saved with messages such as:  Our Owner’s Gay, from Chatom Vineyards. Elect Jeffrey’s for Sheriff; Warning: I go from 0 to Bitch in 3.5 seonds; USA Olympics, 2002; Chocolate Makes the World Go Round. TV4UBYU and so on. Useless.  Junk. For the Junk drawer.

Laurie and I enjoyed the process. I got my fix of “fur” for a couple of days. Koko sat on my lap for a bit while we watched three episodes of Home Fires on DVD. We cooked and ate well, too. Idiotically, I didn’t take a picture of Laurie, just Koko and Bix.

AT WAR WITH MYSELF

I’m a collectoholic. I hate throwing anything away. I’ve kept bags filled with used corks, pretty colored bits of shiny paper, magazines articles, wire, bobby pins, broken fishing poles, tool handles,  faded lumpy sleeping bags, hair curlers…if it has a shape, and a former use, it  is useable. If I give-in and throw it out, that item immediately reveals its usefulness the moment I can no longer retrieve it.  I’m honestly trying to change those old habits.  I’m regularly at war with myself over this issue and the junk often wins. Imagine my delight and validation in rediscovering Edgar Guest’s poem:

THE JUNK BOX

                   The Junk Box
                                                      Edgar Guest
          My father often used to say:
          “My boy, don’t throw a thing away:
          You’ll find a use for it some day.”

          So in a box he stored up things,
          Bent nails, old washers, pipes and rings,
          And bolts and nuts and rusty springs.

          Despite each blemish and each flaw,
          Some use for everything he saw;
          With things material, this was law.

          And often when he’d work to do,
          He searched the junk box through and through
          And found old stuff as good as new.

          And I have often thought since then,
          That father did the same with men;
          He knew he’d need their help again.

          It seems to me he understood
          That men, as well as iron and wood,
          May broken be and still be good.

          Despite the vices he’d display
          He never threw a man away,
          But kept him for another day.

          A human junk box is this earth
          And into it we’re tossed at birth,
          To wait the day we’ll be of worth.

          Though bent and twisted, weak of will,
          And full of flaws and lacking skill,
          Some service each can render still.