One Man's Treasure

They stood in formation, like lookouts guarding a castle, in their brown, green, or grey uniforms. By twilight they would be pillaged, many toppled, left in disarray. Their hoarded wealths looted, swallowed up by a big mechanical robot, controlled by a human individual without heart. Now the maestro of the palace completed the weekly ritual. Each lookout was returned to his or her every other post. Another set of cast of characters offs would replace the hoarded wealths looted today. Identity badges described assigned functions. These badges read leafy vegetable only, recyclable, and all other.

It is the reclaimable that divine this writer's imagination. I am a collector, a shallow collector, unprompted and obsessive. Coins, stamps, books, records, cassettes, videos, knick knacks, advertisement mugs, Christmastide decorations, small town pieces, eagles, dogs, and missionary memorabilia are only a few of the hoarded wealths I have got started.

For old age our garage have ended up the helper of my collections. Boxed and stored from flooring to ceiling, labeled and unlabelled the boxes started a aggregation of their own. Dust. Now that I am on borrowed clip (I have got lived my three mark and ten) I am concerned about the hereafter of my collections. Like Mrs. Winchester of "Mystery House" celebrity I have got adopted a philosophy. As long as the garage is filled with jumble the good Godhead will not take me. Helium would not go forth this messiness to anyone else.

Over the old age I have got participated in the shutting of two household homes. In fact, I have got go the receiver of these household collections. I have got got also fallen inheritor to assorted supplies, dried up ballpoint pens, and used data file booklets etc., arsenic the consequence of concern resettlements related to my administrative career.

Many modern times I have made a combined attempt to relieve this overcrowding. On a regular footing we have a phone call from Community Aid to the Retarded and Handicapped (CARCH) requesting contributions for their thrift store. I dutifully react by skimming the surface of my clutter by boxing up some lesser desirable items.

Feeling good about my forfeit and the advancement I have got made I ask for my married woman to fall in me for a date. The day of the month dwells of a speedy luncheon and a visit to our local CARCH Thrift Store. Imagine my surprise when at the bank check out counter my married woman have picked up a plaything for the children that I had earlier donated. Another clip she was buying back a favourite rose colored, blazer, I had chosen to discard.

I once heard a Los Angles televangelist boasting about being so heavenly blessed he could set twelve to fourteen full garbage tins on the kerb each week. I make not claim that sort of approval but I now effort to donate to CARCH a ratio of seven or eight boxes for every bag of hoarded wealth picked up at their store. In improver to this Iodine weekly attempt to fill up the lookout named Reclaimable with treasures, no longer deemed necessary, like my wife's old college notes, 1960 paid bills, and unread mags from three old age ago.

The household is also benefiting from my crusade. In their Christmastide bundles I may steal in some old postages from an untouched collection. A few coins from the outsize covered plaything box or a crystal dish smuggled from the closet may motivate rolled eyes or a echt smile. Each twelvemonth I go through along old study cards, photos, athletics newspaper clippings etc. to promote the household in a tradition of collecting.