It was junk to me, but it brought it all back for him

I grew up in an era when men were not encouraged to share their feelings. They certainly didn’t cry. So there’ll be none of that in this story.

In the midst of my recent spring cleaning (I know… it’s summer already), I was piling up some unwanted items and sorting the piles of junk left behind by our home’s previous owners. I had listed some black chainlink fence for free on FB Marketplace to lighten the load going to the transfer station. I had an offer of a quick pick-up from someone named Tony so I accepted his request from amongst the 20 respondents. Who knew that old fence was so in demand?

While he was here, Tony relieved me of a few more metal items as “scrap” is a sideline of his. As I pulled a few broken aluminum downspouts, rusty poles and other junk from my pile, I also handed him a battered old aluminum basin. Neither of us was prepared for what came next.

He stopped and stared at the bowl. Then I watched this sturdy mid-50s guy in the western hat struggle through the next few moments. It was junk to me, but this old relic truly brought something back to Tony.

Over the next half an hour, I learned about Tony’s life. A childhood without electricity, with limited water fed from a hand-dug well (when it wasn’t frozen) and a world that was truly foreign to my own fortunate circumstances. Somewhere there were tracks, and Tony and I were on opposite sides of them.

I should have been working (there’s always editing to do), but instead we stood in my driveway and shared a few stories. Two 50-somethings taking stock of the road so far. More behind than in front.

Tony thanked me for the fence and for the scrap, but he told me that the basin is going up on a memory wall he’s created in a private part of his workshop. He doesn’t share this with a whole lot of people, so I feel grateful that I played some role in his making sense of the world. His life.