Who can say why some people do the things they do, and what value they place on worthless items that would be nothing but trash to any sane, sensible man?
Take a gander at my cluttered bookshelves sometime and you’ll wonder what possible value some of the items there could have to any sane, sensible man. The answer is “none,” but then we’re not talking about sane and sensible in this case, I guess.
Most of the items cluttered in front of the books are rocks.
Like the long, gray lozenge of smooth slate I liberated from a stone fence in County Clare, Ireland, with scratches that hint that it may once have been used to sharpen a sword or dagger.
Or the jagged jumble of lava I found near a soccer field in Iceland, where an earthquake had split the earth years before.
Or the angular chunk of red stone that was the exact shape and hue of a distant mountain peak outside of Sedona, Arizona.
By themselves, the rocks have no value at all, but each of them calls back a memory for me that is indispensable.
The greenish chunk of soil fused into dirty molten glass from a lightning strike I saw in Park Ridge, Illinois. The jumble of ancient fern fossils 300 million years old I found while fishing the waters in an abandoned coal strip mine in Wilmington, Illinois. The tennis-ball-sized geode I found along the banks of the Mississippi River while I was in college.
Oh, it’s not only worthless rocks I collect, but other worthless things as well. Like the smooth whorl of wood that was the size of a brick when I found it sunk in three feet of Cayman Island water, until it dried out and shrank to the size of a pack of cigarettes. Or the seahorse I found while walking the beach in Naples, Florida, after a storm had passed through. Or the rock my mom found when she was a child in the 1920’s and kept because it looked like a petrified potato.
Worthless items, all of them, that cost me nothing to collect and worth nothing to any sane, sensible man—but each of them priceless to me for reasons I can’t possibly explain.
Because who can say why some people do the things they do, and what value they place on worthless items that would be nothing but trash to any sane, sensible man.
But I’m not alone in this kind of senselessness, am I? I’ll bet I could rummage through your nightstand or scan your bookshelves and find some chunk of junk that you’d be hard pressed to explain, but would never want to lose.
And maybe, just maybe, you even paid a dear price to end up with that piece of junk.
Like the guy who recently went to an auction in Chesapeake City, Maryland, and bought Adolph Hitler’s toilet seat with the winning bid of $18,750.
The toilet seat was liberated at the end of WWII by a young US soldier, Ragnvald C. Borch, from Hitler’s Bavarian retreat, Berghof. After being told by his superiors to feel free to take whatever he wanted, he grabbed a couple paintings, then nabbed the crapper seat.
“Why are you taking that?” asked another GI who was carrying a chandelier.
“Where do you think Hitler put his ass?” Borch answered. As if any sane, sensible man would recognize that Hitler’s heinie had anointment powers of some value. And it turns out that Borch was right, even if it took more than 75 years to prove its value, when Borch’s son sold the toilet seat at auction for enough money to trade for a Kia.
As of this writing, the proud owner of Hitler’s throne is still anonymous, and it’s not clear what he intends to do with the fuhrer’s loo-lid, but just imagine the possibilities.
I don’t think I’d be willing to pay that much moolah for Hitler’s heinie holder, but it would fit right in hanging on the wall next to my bookshelves full of useless things.
In fact, it doesn’t have to be entirely useless, does it? Maybe I could use it as a picture frame, and install a life-sized face photo of some butthead whose big bazoo belongs in a bidet.
I know just the guy whose face deserves enshrinement in that rump-frame, and any sane, sensible reader would agree.
Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.
