28 May, 2020
Hello. It’s been
awhile since I’ve checked in. I’ll get straight to the point of
this article. A man named Erling.
After I had parked
my truck at work, and was walking to the shop, I looked into the
scrap metal dumpster. I look into that dumpster frequently to see if
there might be something I can use in my basement machine shop. As I
looked in yesterday I saw a little “parts” cabinet. The kind
with a bunch of small plastic drawers for storing screws, nails and
other such hardware. I opened a drawer and saw random junk.
Upholstery tack, curtain brackets and such. Then I opened the large
bottom drawer and saw a piece of paper, on which the words “ration
card”, caught my eye. I then saw a photograph of a young woman and
another of a young girl. It caught my interest because photographs
don’t end up in drawers unless they have special meaning to
someone. I was curious.
I picked that
cabinet out of the dumpster and stuck it into the bed of my truck
with the intention of looking through everything after work. I did
just that and what a treasure I had found. I love old tools. Old
tools were made so much better when people who knew how to make tools
were in charge and not shareholders. When those old tools have the
original owner’s initials or name on them they becom more precious
to me. I’m a mechanic and I have spent a lot of my hard-earned
money purchasing tools so I understand those old guys. I get
sentimental when I look at an old pair of Starrett calipers with the
initials “WJH” stamped into them. I wonder who that guy was,
what his trade was, where he purchased the tool etc. The saying goes
“purchase good tools and they’ll outlast you.” How true.
Purchase quality tools, take care of them and they’ll last for
generations.
I got home from work
and took that little cabinet down to my shop. I found, in addition
to the photographs, a fuel ration card from WWII, many paycheck stubs
from 1945-1961, a chauffeur’s license, vehicle registrations,
deposit slips, an assortment of keys, receipts from credit purchases
and a lot of junk hardware. I learned the guy’s name, what he did
for a living and where he lived in my town. His name was Erling and
he was an appliance repairman. Learning his trade created, in my
head at least, a bit of camaraderie.
I imagine he
purchased this cabinet to keep in his service truck and then put it
into his garage, or basement, when he retired. Maybe it was always
at his home. I don’t know. I only know that a bit of a man’s
story got tossed into a dumpster because someone thought it was
trash. I think that tossing this little cabinet away is
disrespectful to Erling and all he had done in his life. I feel like
I owe it to the guy, from one blue collar tradesmen to another, to
clean up that cabinet and preserve the things he thought were
important to save. I will do just that.
I searched the
internet using his full name and learned some things about Erling.
He lived to be 80 years old, was married to the same woman for about
50 years, they had one child (a daughter) and he died twenty days
after his wife had died. The two photographs in the little cabinet
were of Erling’s daughter. One photo was her at about 3 or 4 years
old and the other (guessing here) as a high school senior. Erling’s
daughter is also deceased. My internet search also produced two
photos of Erling and his wife (they look like church directory or,
perhaps, wedding anniversary photos to me) and in both photographs
they display genuine smiles. They were happy and it showed.
I don’t know the
circumstances that led to Erling’s cabinet being in a scrap metal
dumpster. Maybe someone who purchased his home after his death found
it in a dusty corner. Maybe a distant family member was sorting
through boxes of “stuff” that had been passed down and tossed it
out as “junk.” Whatever the situation, Erling’s little cabinet
is now safe in my basement. The documents are in varying degrees of
decay. I don’t know if they can be saved, I’m a mechanic and not
an archivist, but they will be photographed for posterity. I will
clean the plastic drawers, straighten the bent cabinet and, if
necessary, repaint it. Whatever documents I can preserve, along with
the photographs of Erling’s daughter, will be placed in the bottom
drawer where I found them. Maybe I’ll print this article and
include it in the drawer so that when I’m gone this cabinet might
mean something to the next person to find it.
I hope that when I’m
gone my family will, at the very least, look through all of my things
before throwing away anything. There may just be some little nuggets
of my life tucked away in some innocuous little cabinet.
