Treasures and Secrets From The Past

Yesterday being a day I set aside for de-cluttering in my garage and basement became a day of discovery. I stained a small table I found the other day and thought it would make a perfect flower stand. After cleaning and sanding I was surprised to find it was of  solid cherry and walnut construction; a good find and a recycled treasure. Seeing the amount of work still to be completed in the garage area I went to my favourite place in the basement of our home.

This area of the house is often referred to as my cave as I store my personal treasure in every nook  of this room. It is a large room and is the place I have my polar bear hide and art treasures from the Arctic. It also houses my pool table and comfortable chair from which I watch sports and programming that would not interest other folks. Here is where the remains of my documented life lies in boxes and folders. Pictures and news clippings saved from the past fill storage areas and are mostly neglected until now. I am determined to bring order to this heterogeneous conglomeration of personal history once and for all.

The pool table looked like a good place to start. To hold the material that is, as I began dragging everything from the storage closets and placing the boxes and containers in loose groupings on its surface. The table is not large enough so I extend the area to cover the floor and another table. Now I have an  an idea of the scope of my task. I begin with my LP records and music tapes which date back to the fifties. There are hundreds of them and as I examine some of them I turn on the record player and listen to the Seekers. Every song becomes a memory and there is not enough time to listen to even a small portion of our collection. I go to the garage and dig out my old Sony tape recorder and place a tape in the slot hoping that it still works. It did and my mind again pulled me back to those carefree days when Ann Murray sang songs that you still hear in the Walmarts in Florida.

I move to the picture boxes and began to race through the scores of family pictures. I smile at the brilliance of youth which shines from the black and white photos of yesteryears when we were young and follow the trail of the children growing up and registered on these little pictures. A little sadness when you cross faces that are no longer with us but a inward smile with memories re kindled by markers of time. Hours went by and I just got started. All day I stayed the course and after supper, continued. The clutter was still piled up on the pool table and I seemed no further ahead with the cleanup but I was walking through the past and it gives one a good picture of the future.

I decided to organize the pictures and give as many as possible to people who would benefit from their story and help to give the same warm feeling I got when viewing them. I am just starting with my task but I realize that this basement storage house was not clutter but family history. All it needs is a system to help people to access it. I have the outline of my plan and now I have to go and get it done. At the rate I went forward today I guess I will have a long journey but  a pleasant one.  Somehow I feel that when the work is complete, all I will have is well organized clutter.