Making way for new memories

This photo of our cabin at Ripshin, circa 1979, was on the memory shelf. I was pleased to see that the negative was there, too. To see other photos from the memory shelf, click the headline link above.

I’ve been doing a little housecleaning these days while my wife has been out of town — not so much with dishes and laundry, mind you, but with files and books and ... well, memories.

There’s a bookcase that I’ve been cleaning out; it sits in our bonus room, which serves as my office. In earlier times, it was my grandfather’s gun cabinet, which is a memory in itself. At some point, my Uncle Mike decided to convert the glass-doored gun cabinet into a bookcase, which I eventually inherited.

When I look at the case, I not only see shelves filled largely with ministry-oriented books, but I also think of the days when Grandpa would pull out our Browning shotguns and we’d hit the fields. The guns themselves are nothing more than memories.

Maybe that’s why the very top shelf of this bookcase has served as my “memory shelf,” the repository for everything from baseballs, to birthday and anniversary cards, to cherished photos, and even a postcard featuring the USS Independence, upon which I briefly served. Once I started cleaning off that shelf, I found myself reminiscing over such far-off places as Estonia, Guatemala, and not-so-far-off places such as Ripshin, a mountain lake near Roan Mountain.

But, as I said, I’m doing a little housecleaning, which is why there is now a box labeled “Buzz’s Memory Box.”

The shelf will be wiped off, a few of the old things will stay, but new memories will gather.