Keepers
I was killing time the other night in my work shed by going through some of the hardware my father used to keep in his garage. He and my mother moved to Florida many years ago, and he left most of his tools and all of his hardware behind. I took some tools and three hardware cabinets made of metal with little plastic drawers in them. The largest cabinet was the size and weight of a case of bottled beer.
I was in the shed because I was looking for a cotter pin and found one in the large cabinet. It was the heaviest of the three because its largest drawer was full of what looked like metal junk. I could see the contents through the front of the clear plastic drawer, but I had never opened it, so after I found the cotter pin, I thought I’d look at what was in it.
I immediately could tell it had been filled by a man who had grown up poor. It was jammed with old nuts, bolts, washers, wood screws, machine screws, gears, wing nuts, rivets and the like in dozens of sizes, shapes and finishes. There were steel bolts as long as my ring finger; iron bolts shorter than my pinkie fingernail; thin bolts with nuts on them; thick bolts with no nuts; washers the size of dimes; washers the size of silver dollars-the assortment was as messy as this paragraph.
Some of the hardware was used but still serviceable. The rest of it might have come in handy if I had been rebuilding a rusty steam locomotive. Why my dad held on to it is a question I can’t answer.
Was it because when you grow up poor, you hang on to everything that looks like it might have a use someday? Was it because he was obsessive-compulsive or a hoarder? I never asked-and I doubt he could have answered.
Besides, I didn’t know anything about his obsessive-compulsiveness until I was diagnosed with it myself, and then it was easy to see it in him. By then, though, he was dead.
Rather than simply dumping the old hardware into my metal-recycling pail, I started pulling pieces out of the drawer. Right away I found myself deciding to keep things I thought I might find a use for someday, even though they had been in my shed for a dozen years and I’d never used them. Then I realized what I was doing.
Eventually, I threw almost everything away. Almost.
While I was at it, I went through every other drawer of the cabinet. Some contained items I’ve used before and probably will need again-for example, cotter pins-and some contained items I could have used before: a spark plug socket for tight spots, for instance.
Most of the drawers, though, were filled with things only my father could have foreseen a use for. I dumped them into the recycling bin, too.
I know after I die, somebody will go through my work shed. They’ll find that filing cabinet, look at the contents, and wonder why I had kept it.
They won’t know the half of it.