I have this box.
A box not too uncommon to those that have been in my shoes. This box is well loved, like a woobie or a well-worn stuffed bear. The edges are tattered and the fibers are showing as if this box has seen the world, honestly because it has.
You can tell the age of this box by the countless layers of tape used to secure the contents, over and over and over again, as if you were counting the rings of a fallen majestic oak. It is indeed old. A kind of corrugated mobile roaming time capsule of memories secured within its sad sagging walls.
A box of comfort.
Familiarity.
A box of Home.
In this box are things.Trinkets really, and to the uninitiated (literally) it would seem a box of junk, of trash, scraps and bits-and-bobs bound for the certain fate of a trip to the dump.
Pieces of papers, clipped and carefully preserved, pressed between bigger pieces of paper, wedged inside a yearbook or two or seven.
Old foreign public transportation tickets, properly validated by the familiar inked dated punch from a clanky machine that chewed on its corner at one time. Old sepia drenched printed pictures in odd shapes that don’t exist anymore showing strangely dressed youth with stranger hair or glasses in far away majestic lands with grand vistas or ancient cities behind. Lands to some only a distant dream that they will never set foot on. Ever. Sad.
This box also contains things like drum sticks, and letters that were once affixed to jackets. A small vial that once contained water said to be from a blessed stream that cured people, bottled miracles. Old soda cans written in a foreign language, long since drained of their contents. Signed posters.
Signed anything, that could be signed.
There are old hand written letters of loves past, friends still remembered and music on formats that have long lost the battle to technology that will never be played again. There are post cards and strands of puka shells once worn but missing clasps. Napkins of eateries. Strips of film negatives.
There are maps. Maps and more maps of places visited, that to this day are not needed, because the depictions of these locations are so burned into our minds, it has all but rendered maps useless. Because, we remember.
We will always remember.
This box, so revered so treasured, that it didn’t go in the big shipment that was put in a crate that was put on a freighter that took months and months to get to its next destination. Oh no, this box was pried from the hands of many a young person and gingerly placed in the “express” shipment that, HOPEFULLY reached where we were going around the same time as that watery eyed child, it was THAT important.
Others have had this box and most likely still do. Of things. Of places. Of people past. Not of things lost, but things and people found.
For no matter where we ended up, the next destination…. It was ok.
It was always home because it’s always there to add more things to it… the culmination of the destination and beyond.
It doesn’t matter how much more I fill it, it stretches and grows to accommodate whatever is put into it.
I, and many others like me, have this box.
I will always have this box.
~Jim Kipping
Proud NAVY brat, for life.
Since the subject of the spot included Veterans, we dove into his career as US Marine. Having served 10 deployments to the Middle East, his accommodations literally ran over a page I was looking at. He had seen a lot. He told me on one of his deployments to how his platoon leader was a huge history buff and they stumbled upon what appeared to be a pyramid in Iraq. Very odd. This was surrounded by archaeological ruins. Turned out his senior officer knew it just happen to be the burial tomb of Abraham.
Mind blown.
This subject matter of Military life hits close to home as I grew up in a military family. We’d followed my father on numerous deployments, including stateside and numerous overseas tours. So, Howie and I of course hit it off talking about all things military.
Travel. Living in a foreign country and all that entails. Learning about the local customs, culture, and traditions.
My father being stationed to the Pentagon in DC, had us close to some of the iconic military bases like Ft. Belvoir (Army) and Quantico (Marines), which brought a smile to Howie.
We also laughed how my family would go to Camp Lejeune in NC, another Marine Base, that had a long stretch of beach we would visit for vacation. That beach was majestic and pristine, and you could walk along it’s sandy shores but only up to a point.
You had to stop at a huge sign warning people not to pass, because just on the other side of that sign, Navy and Marine planes including the Harrier would be practicing live fire-bombing runs. Yes with explosions, fire, the big boom… the works. Howie knows of it well.
The biggest kick we had as we fist bumped heading out the door after our conversation captured on hard drive for my spot, was when I was walking him out and said, “You know Howie, there’s nothing quite like the smell of Jet A in the morning on a beach!”
Belly roll laughs.
For the uninitiated, that’s aviation fuel. You may smell that any time you go to an airport.
I like Howie a lot and it was fun walking down memory lane this morning with him.