Summoned

 We gather stuff along the way. What I mean are those things we save from our past for any number of reasons. They may, or may not related to each other. Eclectic is the word that describes that. My wife just calls it clutter, or junk, most of the time. I do too. Then there are times when we purge. What we are doing is acknowledging an emotional release from those objects. The reason we saved them was based on emotion, what we may call nostalgia. Then we find ourselves willing to just let it go. I admit it something I struggle with. I didn't live during the depression and didn't grow up saving everything. I'm a boomer, so I'm told, and spoiled. That's what my parents said, and all their friends agreed with them. I grew up in a throw away society, except I don't like throwing anything away. I might want that one day.

 I was thinking about that once again when I ran across a piece of paper from years back. It's a summons! Yes, I was summoned to appear before the court. It wasn't a real court or a real summons though, just one from my time in the Navy. When you are on a ship and are going to cross the equator, as a pollywog, you are summoned to appear before the court. It's an old navy tradition and after crossing the line you become a shellback. That happened on February the 17th of 1991. Nearly 34 years ago. I remember the day well. But what do I do with that summons? It would mean nothing to anyone else, I've had it tucked away ever since I got it. It's just an old piece of paper. That made me think about all the others I have as well. Twenty years of citations, letters of appreciation, enlistment, reenlistments, awards, medals and ribbons. It's quite a pile of paper. And, I suspect, of little interest to anyone else. That sort of stuff is only of interest if you are famous in some fashion, then it becomes memorabilia. It can be sold, which does interest others. Funny how that works isn't it?

 I do have an attachment to all that stuff. I have a small portion of it on display throughout my house. A certificate suitable from framing here and there, a few photographs of ships, my honorable discharge and a letter from the president thanking me for my service, auto signed  by the official presidential auto-signing machinery. My family walk past that stuff all the time and it goes unnoticed. A lot of stuff like that in everyone's home is my guess. It's just the old familiar thing. 

 Just what do you do with all that stuff? I have a shadow box that was presented to me upon my retirement. It contains a list of all the duty stations where I served and all the ribbons and medals I was awarded. Twenty years in a box. I have another shadow box that contains the flag from my fathers coffin, a gift from a grateful nation, as the citation reads. I also have his medals from his time in WW2 and a few faded photographs, the faces and names lost to time but I still save them. I like to believe that dad is happy about that. No one wants their stuff thrown out.

 That is only the military stuff. I have a lot of other "memories" in boxes, on shelves and in the closet. What to do with them. The grandkids are in their twenties and not really interested in the stuff they did as a kid. Mostly they still find it embarrassing. They are old enough to have lost the pride in their accomplishment at that time. It is only years later that you do begin to appreciate the "things" that your parents or grandparents saved. Much of it will not survive long enough to gain respect and status. It is just stuff. Tomorrow it may become a treasured memory. So I guess what I'm trying to figure out is what is the treasure and what is the trash. It's an old adage for sure. The older you get the more you begin to understand the depth of those old adages.