The Old Blog in the Desert

I am known to my wife as a “pack rat.” She says it the way a preacher says “sinner”—with conviction, but still hopeful for my salvation. I, however, prefer to think of myself as a preservationist of fine artifacts—protector of useful, maybe even valuable things that haven’t yet realized their potential.

Mary doesn’t buy that. She calls it “junk.”

Now, every so often, she gets what I can only describe as a cleaning fever. You can see it in her eyes—some wild combination of holy mission and personal vendetta. It starts small, like dusting the top of the refrigerator, but within hours, it’s a full-scale crusade against clutter.

When this happens, I know what’s coming.

“Tom,” she’ll say, tapping her foot in the doorway, arms crossed like a judge ready to hand down a sentence. “It’s time to clean out that garage.”

And so begins my annual trial—one man defending the right of all lost nuts, bolts, cables, and keepsakes to live another day.

I usually try to reason with her. “Now, Mary,” I’ll say, “someday this old toaster might be worth something.”

“It’s worth something now,” she’ll reply. “It’s worth half a cubic foot of my patience.”

But this last time—this one was different. Mary came armed with three cardboard boxes, a label maker, vengeance, and that look that said, “This time he’s not talking me out of it.”

That’s when I remembered a story—a true story—that I always bring up when she starts her crusade against my treasures.

“Mary,” I said, “before you go tossing my life’s collection into the abyss, let me remind you of what happened to Bill.”

She sighed. “Bill who?”

“You remember. Bill—the fellow whose wife cleaned out their attic.”

“Go on,” she said, crossing her arms again, but her eyes softened just a little.

So I told her.

Bill’s wife got that same urge one afternoon. She disappeared into the attic and stayed up there so long he thought maybe she’d fallen through the rafters. Then came her voice, muffled but stern.

“Bill! There are too many boxes up here! What do you want to do with all this junk?”

Bill didn’t even look up from his recliner. “Throw it all out!” he yelled.

A few minutes passed, and then her voice came again, a little more hesitant.

“You better come up here and take a look at this first.”

Bill groaned, set his newspaper down, and climbed those creaky attic stairs. There she was, sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by boxes. In front of her sat one marked Records — Fragile. Inside were old photograph records—acetates, the kind that go brittle with time.

His wife said, “Maybe we should listen to a few before we toss them.”

“Alright,” Bill said, figuring it couldn’t hurt.

So they brought the box downstairs and dusted off the old turntable. One by one, the past began to sing again—old songs and voices neither had heard in decades. They smiled, laughed, remembered.

But then came one record that made Bill freeze. The voice, scratchy and ghostly through the speakers, seemed to reach across time itself. He just stood there, staring at nothing, until the last note faded.

“What is it?” his wife asked.

And then Bill told her the rest of the story.

Back when he was a young man, Bill and his friend Henry were in the music business. Neither of them could read or write music, but they had good ears and good voices. They’d learned songs the old way—by hearing them, memorizing every note and word through repetition.

One day, Bill received word that Capitol Records wanted him to cut a record. The only problem?

He needed a brand-new song—something special. Henry said, “I’ve got just the thing.”

Since Bill couldn’t read sheet music, Henry offered to do him a favor. He’d make a little demo—a recording on an acetate disc—, so Bill could learn the tune by ear.

So Henry went down to a small studio, sat with his guitar, and recorded the only copy of the song. He gave it to Bill, who used it to learn the melody, then cut his own version for Capitol.

Afterward, Bill tossed Henry’s demo in a box and forgot about it. Decades passed.

Then, in 1988—thirty-seven years later—Bill and his wife found that dusty disc in their attic. They listened.

And the song that poured out of that fragile record turned out to be something remarkable–a long-lost performance by Hank Williams Sr., recorded for his friend “Big Bill Lister.” The forgotten record became the foundation for a miracle of modern music—a duet between father and son, Hank Sr. and Hank Jr., reunited across the decades through that song, “There’s a Tear in My Beer.”

So you see,” I told Mary, “you never know what might be in these boxes. It could be history, or treasure.”

She looked at me for a long moment. “Or it could be an old blender and three dead flashlights,” she said.

“Well, sure,” I admitted, “but what if it’s something more?”

Now, my “collections” are eclectic. There’s a box of computer cables that fit no known device made after 1998.

Another filled with nuts, bolts, and screws of mysterious origin. A third box contains various treasures, including rusted pocketknives, a cracked thermos, a small transistor radio that hasn’t worked since the first Bush administration, and my high school yearbooks.

However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something within the chaos would be of importance. So I made Mary a deal, “If I can’t find one thing of value in here by sundown, I’ll help you toss whatever you want.”

She smiled, the kind of smile that says, “You’ve already lost.”

I rolled up my sleeves and dove in.

At first, it was the usual assortment of mystery metal and broken dreams. I found a remote control to a television we no longer owned, a shoebox full of batteries that might as well have been rocks, and enough extension cords to wire a small city.

Then I found it—an old cardboard box labeled Tom’s Stuff – 1980s.

Inside were relics from a younger version of me: cassette tapes, Polaroids, a few letters from friends I hadn’t heard from in years, and—oddly enough—a reel-to-reel tape in a metal canister.

I don’t even remember owning a reel-to-reel recorder. I brushed off the dust and squinted at the label. Written in faded pen were the words, “For Future Tom—Don’t Forget to Laugh.”

That sounded like something I would write after too much coffee and too much optimism. Now, I don’t have a reel-to-reel player anymore, but a nearby neighbor, Chuck, is the kind of guy who keeps old gadgets just for the thrill of being needed.

Sure enough, he had one sitting in his garage. We hooked it up, threaded the tape, and pressed play.

After a few clicks and a hum, my younger self’s voice filled the air.

“Hey there, Future Tom,” the recording said. “If you’re listening to this, that means you didn’t throw me out. Good job. Now, a few notes from the past…”

What followed was twenty minutes of rambling, half-serious advice from my twenty-something self. Stuff like: “Don’t ever buy a car with pop-up headlights—they’ll break the first time you try to impress someone,” “Always keep duct tape and optimism handy. One fixes things, the other keeps you trying, “Call your parents more.”

And finally—this part got me—“When life feels cluttered, remember: everything you hold onto tells a story. But don’t let the stories bury you. Keep what reminds you who you are—and let the rest go.”

“Sounds like some good advice,” Chuck smiled.

I rewound the tape, sat there a while, and thought about all those boxes.

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to save everything, or the real treasures weren’t the things themselves but the memories they stirred up—the laughter, the lessons, the voices of who we used to be.

That night, I told Mary about it, and where I was expecting an ‘I told you so,’ she smiled softly instead.

“Well,” she said, “maybe we can compromise, you keep the things that tell your story, but the rest—let’s make room for new ones.”

We spent the next two days sorting, reminiscing, and yes, tossing a few things.

Then we’d stumble upon something that sparked a laugh or a memory–a love letter I’d written her in 1986, a baby rattle from our son, a cracked mug that once held a dozen late-night coffees during our early years together.

And when we finished, the garage didn’t look empty—it looked alive again, with room to breathe, enough for the next chapter.

Now, whenever she starts needling me about getting rid of “junk,” I still remind Mary about Bill and that attic discovery, and I also remind her of that reel-to-reel tape—a message from the past, reminding me that not everything worth keeping fits on a shelf.

Sometimes, what we hang onto—stories, memories, songs long forgotten—has a way of circling back to us when we need it most.

So, yes, I may still be a pack rat, but I’m a sentimental one, and I like to think I’ve got reason enough to be.

After all, one man’s junk might be another man’s miracle—or, at the very least, a good story waiting, and who knows? And maybe someday, long after I’m gone, someone will find an old box in the attic marked Tom’s Stuff, dust it off, and press play.

Maybe they’ll hear a voice—mine—telling them not to throw everything away too fast. Perhaps they’ll laugh and understand.

And maybe, just maybe, they’ll find a little music left in the mess.