Why did the equivalent of a semi-tractor trailer back up to one of our barns last week?
Good question.
There are short and long answers.
Country artist George Jones sang about “living and dying with choices” that he’d made.” My quick response is that I chose to be a nostalgic packrat. Each of the items that I have kept has a story. Good memories are a happy place for me.
Here’s the long answer:
Community Newspapers Inc. is relocating its corporate office. I am supposed to be “retired.” I needed to extract my stuff. I could have hired a mover, but I chose to use a helper. The exercise was exhausting, but I deserved every ounce of sweat and every sore muscle.
After all, I chose to create this 53-years-in-the-making “problem.” That’s why I was determined to be a hands-on part of the solution. Randy—who is also old enough to draw social security—and I loaded and unloaded every piece.
To transport the eclectic mix of memorabilia, we made dozens of trips up and down steps. Each time Randy and I were carrying items through doorways, I’d repeat what Big Dink told me. Rolling caskets through narrow funeral-home doors, he’d say, “Keep your hands on the corners. Don’t damage the merchandise. Your knuckles will heal.”
So, why did we make so many back-and-forth trips to the farm?
Here’s an abbreviated snapshot:
§ My dad’s younger brother operated Johnny’s Plunder House. He knew of my affinity for oak furniture. Uncle Johnny arranged for me to buy a retiring attorney’s oak collection of conference tables, chairs, filing cabinets, shelving units, and the Lord only knows how many books. Add to that, hundreds of my own books to box and tote.
§ Framed pictures and artwork filled my office, a conference room and two long hallways. Bulldog Lindsay Scott got his 1980 national-championship teammates to sign a Jack Davis poster. Voice of the Bulldogs Larry Munson signed another. There were four extra-large Coca-Cola prints from the 1940s. I’ll tell you that story another day. And there were dozens of other framed pictures.
§ The vintage Coke box came with the purchase of the Brown’s Grocery building in Ludowici. Santa gave Pam the box when she and Smith Wilson redeveloped the historic Coca-Cola complex, The Bottleworks, on Prince Avenue in Athens.
§ You had to risk skinning your knuckles, maneuvering the oak and glass display case that is filled with newspaper relics. In it is our first Macintosh computer, which was purchased in 1988.
§ For my 40th birthday, Daddy and Mother bought the 1900 nickel-plated and leather chair from Jack’s Barber Shop. I can sit in it, and I’m happily back in 1955.
§ For my 50th birthday, my parents gave me a 1948 Texaco gasoline pump, a reminder of my boyhood job at Pope’s Texaco.
§ From Harris Gin Co., there’s the liar’s and whittler’s bench. Oh, the stories it could tell. Heavy to tote was the metal news box from our first daily newspaper. I couldn’t discard that treasure from Rockingham, North Carolina.
§ Friends have given me an assortment of handcrafted boat paddles. A stockpile of awards, plaques and gifts was also saved from the dumpster.
§ I have two oak Brumby rockers. One was a gift when I retired from the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents. The other marked the birth of our first grandchild, Wyatt Wilson.
§ A campaign poster of Alec Hopkins makes me smile. The waist-high stack of other posters and maps didn’t weigh much, but I wasn’t about to leave them behind. And there was box after box of files, including a half-century of columns, civic talks and personal correspondence, such as letters from Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates and a host of others.
§ I couldn’t throw away the boxes jammed with files from organizations that I had chaired, such as Athens 96 during the Olympics, the Richard B. Russell Foundation, the Georgia Press Association, Leadership Georgia, the Georgia Telecommunications Commission, the Board of Regents, and the list goes on and on.
Yeah, I know.
My heirs will wonder, “Why did Grandpa keep all this stuff?”
It’s because George Jones explained that I’m living by the choice I’ve made.
And I’m happy to have chosen to be a nostalgic packrat.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
