The things that could have been that million-dollar idea, but have since become worthless.

Look there, there is that pen shaped like a little hammer I have been missing for several years. Ah ha! There is that guy’s name I wanted to call about buying an old car I had. Hmm…oh…I forgot, I sold that car a few years ago. There’s that man’s business card I have been looking for! He sells four-wheeler parts! Man, I wish I still had that old four -wheeler, but I sold it about three years ago.

During the past several months I have been a man on a mission. I have been bound and determined to catch up with a lot of things in life and I can finally say that I am beginning to feel like it is happening.

I have been pondering the fact that my life is almost half over and I still have things I wanted to do as a kid that I still haven’t done. So I have decided to try to play catch up.

I have always wanted to have all my junk in a systematic order that when I needed it I could find it! Now I know why I called it junk and most of the stuff I have is, in fact, just that! Junk! But to me it’s a treasure.

Looky here! I just found that old picture of that ugly old lady with a cigarette in her mouth that Stan gave me. She looks like a female Popeye. Stan remembered that the Mueller Boys still call me Popeye so he gave me the picture. I recently found up at the ranch my dad’s old carbide head light he used to use before the dry cell battery lights were invented. The hat is rotted and the metal is rusted, but I can remember many trips along the banks of Spring Creek following in my dad’s footsteps while checking the set poles hoping for that one big catfish. Of course, the light belongs to all the family, but I have brought it home and stored it on my office shelves for safe keeping.

I have always envied guys like Leroy, my cousin. He used to have junk that was always neat, clean and very much in order. You need an old piece of angle iron? He could probably go to the bin that is marked angle iron and pull out a piece. It would be all sorted in order based on size and length. If you needed a piece of metal from me I would have to crank up my tractor and mow the weeds to get to the junk pile.

Then we would have to hook chains to the old cattle guards I have stacked on top of the smaller stuff and then, if we were real lucky, we might find a few pieces of angle iron. After pulling a piece out of the pile we would then need to clean the dirt off only to have it crumble in our hands with rust. We just wasted a half a day.

After cleaning off my desk today, however, I noticed I feel much better. I have been doing some major cleaning up at the ranch, too. I have been tearing down and rebuilding some old fence and as soon as I finish that project, I am thinking about straightening out the barn again. I had it all straight and pretty about two years ago, but my cows broke in and really messed it up and when I use the word “mess,” I mean mess in all fashion of the sense.

Catching up with my work and getting my desk cleaned off is somewhat scary, too. Being self-employed and having a clean desk can be a bad thing. I read somewhere that having a clean desk is the sign of a sick mind, but in my books being self-employed and having a clean desk can be the sign of a broke man, too! In my case, however, my desk may be clean, but at least I still have a lot of work on it. At least my work is in order.

Oh…wait, here comes Heather with her arms loaded…so much for my clean desk…

Clifford

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