Ever since I left home, my father has been shipping me boxes of stuff. Sometimes he packs up pieces of our history. Sometimes he returns the book or the shirt or whatever it was I left behind on my last visit. Most times he ships the things he believes I can’t live without.
For example…
- A glamour photo of Mom and Dad when they got engaged.
- The menu from their wedding.
- The license plate of the first car I drove.
- The operating manual to our first power lawnmower.
- The legs to the table Dad built when I was six to hold my electric trains, when I was thinking of adding a train room to my house. The legs were 14” tall. Dad had forgotten that I was no longer 6.
- Army boots.
- An anvil.
- A brace-and-bit drill. What the Three Stooges couldn’t do with a brace-and-bit drill.
- 40 hammers.
- 100 bars of soap. I had just moved to Seattle and Dad was worried they didn’t sell soap.
- 3,000 brass screws. That was two boxes.
A new box arrived on Friday. Here it is with Mr. Lucky for scale:
Dad armors these boxes until they can withstand truck and plane travel and, if necessary, a broadside from the U.S.S. Constitution. After ripsawing my way through the top, I saw this:
The gloves make good padding. They’ll find a home with the hundreds of other gloves Dad has used for padding.
Let’s start digging!
What’s in that cigar box, and the yellow box behind it?
An ancestor of the Flair pen, 39 brass drapery hooks, sharpening stones, and the kind of springy doorstop that kids of my generation loved to thwang against the wall with the toe of their sneakers. This time around, Dad must’ve been emptying the junk drawer he started filling in 1957.
Back to the box. I’ll remove one layer at a time:
The gray boxes are sets of socket wrenches. Gotta have those. Wait, I already do!
These boxes are complicated – not because of the merchandise, but because of the emotions they represent. Or maybe these boxes are simple – they are solid love. I wrote this post and took these photos because Dad is a World War II veteran living in the 21st century and I won’t have him and Mom around forever. I once received these boxes several times each year. Now they’re uncommon, like birds that have changed their migration pattern. I’ve often felt inundated by junk, but for all the inconvenience, I’ll miss these boxes when I no longer find them waiting patiently for me on the front step.
What’s in the mail? Memories. A parent’s care. And flashlights.
Run-DMSteve 