The Shelf

“Well, I heard some people talkin’ just the other day, and they said you were gonna put me on a shelf…” (1974) “Already Gone” Recorded By: Eagles Composers: Jack Tempchin & Robb Strandlund.

Although it’s becoming more difficult to save up for college, or trade schools, still a goal for higher education. These days, during the controversies of objections in the curriculum in our public school systems, many parents are hunting for appropriate private schools of education where dark indoctrination isn’t priority. There are many among us who soak in higher education from the streets, and hands-on experience in the real world of industry.

Recently, I have been taught well by a 10×10, non-climate controlled storage unit, on the outskirts of Greenville, Texas.

Many months ago I wrote about my mom’s dementia, forcing a drastic change in her life, and ours. She came to live with us during the final week of November last year. With the alteration of daily life, came the painstaking job of chipping away at cleaning out her old storage unit. She’s been paying monthly for it since the late 90’s. (At that time, $25 /month, now $110/month.) I have been taking the 60 mile drive off/on a few times a month to battle the forest of boxes stacked inside. Below is a picture of my progress when I got to a halfway point. When first diving into the operation, the boxes were from floor to about six feet high, with no path to walk.

When I moved back to Texas, from Buffalo, NY in Aug of 2008, I also added a small few to her cardboard mound, but only to be a temporary pitstop. Yeah, right.

Choking back the collective dust, I have been very careful to open each box, sorting my way through the contents. My mom is a hoarder. She has an issue with throwing anything away. She even saves up gently-used fast food napkins. (Sure, read that again.) You just never know when you’re going to run out, right? With that said, I plow through each and every box, wading through old hotel soap bars, combs and brushes from the 1950’s, and individually wrapped saltine crackers from various restaurants from the last few decades. In about 30% of each box I will discover simple trash…yes, garbage. Trash, in the form of fast food plastic forks and spoons, wadded up paper lunch sacks, discarded Cracker Jack prizes, etc. Trust me, I get challenged when I am sore, hot, and exhausted. I need duct tape for my mouth sometimes.

This cleaning out experience has also taught me well in other areas. If you don’t give up, keep digging through old bank statements, junk mail, and grocery store coupons from 1969, because the bottom of the box can bring forth true treasures.

I found a beautiful blue, blown-glass paperweight, baseball-size, I gave her from a high school choir tour to Colorado Springs. We visited a glass shop where I watched the artist create the glass spectacle.

I was so elated to find my granddad’s Navy pin from WWII.

(I need to clean and clip my fingernails.)

I recovered two ladies dress hats from the days of yore. To this day we do not know if they belonged to my grandmother, or great-grandmother. Either way, they are keepsakes now.

Among the gobs and gobs of photos being rescued, I found about 25 pics from a photo shoot I did for talent agencies going way back to October of 1979. I was 19 at the time.

Remember those shirts?

On the heartbreaking side, I have discovered items that maybe should’ve stayed buried in the warped vortex of boxes. I found the dog tags and collar of my beloved childhood dog, Tickey. She considered him to be another son. He was a treasure. Alone, in that 10×10 aluminum shed, I shook his tags on his collar just to hear the jingle-jangle from my mental dust. It made me smile.

Tickey in 1968.

She had stored tons of letters she had received. Many from old friends, and family, who have gone to be with God. Reading them, it gives me the sense of their spirit, as if they stuck them in the mail just yesterday. Enclosed in one of the boxes, a bundle of letters I had written to her, sharing my sorrows, disappointments and pains during harsh days in my past. In her current condition, I feel most of these would not be appropriate for consumption.

If I don’t stop here, I will go on and on concerning my storage unit adventures.

Yes, I am finding the shelf is indeed a great teacher. A true time capsule. The learning continues.

As for my stuff, I am dedicated to only saving items of family history, documents of family importance, and snapshots which tell my kids and grandkids what was truly golden to me, and to those who came before me. A storage unit can truly speak of who you are…or were. The treasures of the heart, we drag from shelf to shelf, paints a picture of our identity for others who will come after us. One box from my past, reminded me of sins I have had to deal with. Like Jesus does, I tossed it behind me, never to haunt my eyes again.

The shelf has taught me that no matter how important some item can be, it can, and will, be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. Some things are meant to be forgotten.

A lesson from the shelf also comes to me in the form of understanding that some “things” which may seem urgent today, may be trivial tomorrow.

The lonely dusty shelf screams out, “NOT EVERYTHING YOU DEEM NOTEWORTHY TODAY IS NOT! ALL WILL FADE, ALL WILL CORRODE!”

Yet, on the spiritual side, it’s gratifying to know, to “store” in your heart, the fact that God Himself never puts YOU on a shelf. In God’s economy, you will never find yourself “put away” in a tin box somewhere, away from His sight, away from His mind. The One Who created dust never has to brush away the settling dust off of those He loves….which includes you.

Unlock the true forgotten treasures just waiting in fuel for the race.

“…I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” John 10:28-29 (NAS)