One man’s stuff is another man’s life

A fellow outdoorsman who is also a Spokane psychologist stepped into my home office the other day. “Man!” he said looking around. “I need to spend some time in here. This is not the workplace of a normal man.”

Hmmmm. To me, my office seems normal enough. On one desk are a computer, a printer and a scanner. On another are a stack of 35 mm slides and a viewing box. A fax machine sits atop a metal two-door file cabinet, and shelves are crammed with reference books, brochures, binders, pictures of my parents and my children, and a few letters and cards dear to my heart.

Oh, sure, there are a few mounted things about, including a pheasant, a chukar, two ducks and a huge Canada goose attached to the ceiling with almost invisible monofilament fishing line. (When you first come into my office, he seems to be landing on the magazine rack.) There is also a gold pan, lots of fish and duck pictures, a homemade sign that says “Damn, I’m Good,” a Civil War sword, a beaver hide, several coyote pelts, an antique Zenith radio and a stuffed rattlesnake. At various times, assorted friends, mostly female, have asked me how I determine what goes where.

My answer is “First come, first served.”

Oddly, the Spokane psychologist/outdoorsman was not particularly interested in my mounted birds. He was staring at a tall file cabinet next to the closet door – the one where I keep the single bowling trophy and the picture of my daughter in her junior high basketball uniform. They are surrounded by a diverse collection of odds and ends I picked up over the years, deemed worthwhile, and kept.

Once home with these treasures, I found I really had no place for them. Or perhaps that was just my excuse to keep them near at hand. I tossed them on the file cabinet, promising myself I would deal with them later. The top of the file cabinet is only 18-by-28 inches. It is amazing that I have crammed so many items into such a small area.

There is a barnacle-encrusted Crown Royal bottle up there – a reminder of a spring vacation on Barkley Sound. Close by are a moose tooth I found in Alaska, a thumb brace and the tail of my first salmon over 40 pounds. There are two worn-out fishing reels on my file cabinet – all with a story – and also a rusty ten-penny nail, a wild turkey egg, a Franz Dutzler brook trout carving and a half-used bottle of trombone slide oil that belonged to my father. There is a plastic film canister holding both the “spur” from an African spur-wing goose and a small can that is labeled “Pure Texas Armadillo.”

An old doorknob from my first house, a jar of rocks from the Yukon, a waterbed repair kit, nine gold, foil-covered, chocolate “coins” and a coffee mug from the first restaurant in Coulee City, Wash., also adorn my file cabinet.

An 11-inch turkey beard is there, too, as is a blue, pin-on button that says “Contest Winner,” and my most recent addition – the small, yellow tag I took from the back of the Lake Roosevelt trout I had for dinner last week.

“What will you do with all this stuff?” my psychologist friend asked me.

“What stuff?” I asked him.

“The stuff on your file cabinet,” he said.

“You mean The Liere Chronicles?” I asked. “My life diary? What would I do without it?”