I’ve not been able to work out of my office downstairs because the wifi won’t reach it. Although a portion of the work I do doesn’t require wifi, it comes in handy for reference. Recently, I moved into Harold’s old office, and he set up shop at a worktable in the bedroom.
Harold has occupied this office since the house was built, and it has various computers, equipment galore, shelves upon shelves of computer books, a full file cabinet, two TVs, a multitude of CDs, and various items too numerous to mention.
I’ve begun trying to carve out a usable workspace. Not knowing where to start, I began on the wire shelves. I soon realized that that was a humongous job, so I looked at the bookshelf. I know I’m going to have to work really hard to get Harold to let go of his program manuals that line almost every shelf of the bookcase and several of the wire shelves.
Then, I noticed his old college textbooks were on the bottom shelf. With full confidence that he wouldn’t want to browse a book on physics, chemistry, graphics (about actual graphs!), analytic geometry, programming in Fortran IV, and a dozen other equally boring subjects. Much to my delight, he said I could pitch them.
Nothing speaks old school like outdated textbooks or outdated equipment. Although we, like most other people, disconnected our house phone, but one of us wouldn’t pitch all the old phones and phone equipment. I found an old address book that had a sliding alphabet. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to pop it open. I’m sure there wasn’t an address or phone number less than 30 years old.
When we look into boxes that have been packed away, we find “old school” outdated items, but we can also uncover treasures. I recently went through a box we found in the shop at the rental house. I found a comic book from the 60s, two old cameras still in the boxes, letters from Burma during WWII, postcards from all over the US, and a variety of other memorabilia. The best find, as far as I’m concerned, was a pilsner beer glass that has become my go-to water glass.
Throughout life, many of us have an abundance of old school treasures that others can easily identify as junk. I’ve always been a packrat, but Jim was a minimalist at heart. I believe that moving around a lot as a kid, he learned to choose what was important enough to move with him.
Jim’s idea of getting rid of excess baggage has been known to get him into trouble, especially with me. When we moved from a two-story farmhouse to a mobile home, Jim was heartless in selling our furniture to a second-hand store.
We moved only the furniture and belongings that would fit into the mobile home and a small storage shed. Over time, the shed leaked and ruined some of the items stored in it. One day, while I was at work, Jim enlisted the help of my sister-in-law to help him clean out the shed. They discarded the wet, mildewed objects and put aside the undamaged ones. As payment, Jim gave her my good set of dishes. I was furious, but he pointed out that we never used them and the plates were too flat. I couldn’t argue with that kind of logic.
So often it’s out of sight, out of mind. We find ourselves burdened with unusable junk that either sentiment or indecision keeps us from discarding.
If only the clutter of life itself was as easy to discard as old textbooks, life would be simpler. Instead, we cling to our burdens and worries until we are drowning in them. If we can convince ourselves to let go and look to the future with hope and optimism, we find the life preservers that will keep us from drowning in despair.
Life is more complex now. The tools that were meant to make life easier often make our lives more challenging. In our wildest dreams, we never envisioned a world where cell phones and social media meant we would be constantly in contact with the world.
Old school carries a sense of nostalgia. Our past is what makes us what we are today. We remember the world before Google gave us instant answers to all our questions, and we marveled at life’s mysteries. We’ve gained instant gratification, but we’ve lost the magic of using our imaginations and God-given talent to ponder the endless possibilities.
Copyright © August 2024 by L.S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com
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