Junk Has Meaning

While I was working today at my desk I realized how junked up it is….and stays. Laptop, monitors, printer compete for surface space with piles of filing, notebooks, stacks of photos, cool boxes something came in and other treasures that have been there so long I no longer see them. While taking this inventory my mind goes to … if something happens to me “who will clean this desk off and how will they know what is important?” – “how could they know?”.

So this is the history of one such treasure that has been on my desk for over a quarter of a century. It is approximately 6″ x 4″ x 2″thick and made of crystal. It is a relief carving of the Cerro de la Silla, a mountain and natural monument located within the metropolitan area of the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León.

In the 80s … Lee and I ran a business we created selling warehouse equipment to industrial North Texas. In the years leading up to the NAFTA trade deal we started several partnerships in Mexico. These relationships and the business created called for me to visit Mexico often. Over a period of 5 or 6 years I was in Monterrey and Mexico City regularly. Something I enjoyed very much and even more when Lee traveled with me. Now if you know those two cities you know how very different they are. D.F. (Mexico City) is a massive city full of the cultural icons of the country while Monterrey is a large industrial machine churning out much of the GNP of Mexico. One of our partners there Jorge Flores gave me the “paperweight” with the relief carving of the cities most recognizable attraction after we toured the factory where it was made. Jorge owned a company similar to ours but without the supply connections. I always specialized in process work (making repetitive things work better) and we were asked to evaluate a process there in the factory. Over the next few years it always pleased him to visit our offices and see the memento sitting on my desk.

The “rest of the story” as Paul Harvey used to say is this….In 1958 I was 12 years old and living at 2118 Jennette St in Abilene, TX when my dad announced we were taking a vacation. Something we had never done. In a weeks time we drove our 2 door 55 Ford station wagon from Abilene thru Eagle Pass and on to Saltillo. From there to Monterrey then Laredo and back home. Dad was convinced that the Italian he had learned during WWII would serve him well and we would come back culturally better off by the experience. Mom was convinced it would be a train wreak but packed bologna sandwiches and fresh fruit to last the trip.

However the trip was complicated the night before we left. I had dug a pit in the back yard to practice pole vaulting. The pole I fashioned from a 2″x2″x8′ stick was jammed into a wedge shaped hole just like the real pit at the school. That late afternoon before the trip I was out back vaulting when my foot came down in the wedge shaped hole with my heel in the hole but the ball of my foot on the high side. SNAP. I sat down and allowed the pain to settle to a level I could manage and considered my options. Obviously I had to keep this to myself…it will ruin the vacation. I have always been able to make good decisions. So I hobbled into the house and kept to myself the rest of the night.

Rising at first light and packing the car my dad was too busy to notice my leaning on walls and hopping from one place to another…and I made it to the car. Crickett saw what was happening and was about to “tell” when I did what any older brother would do. I threatened her. Looking back on it I am not sure what my plan was but I know that further down the road was better than coming clean. Finally Crickett blurted out…”Yogi hurt his foot and it is black”. Mom looks in the back seat and starts freaking out…dad pulls over by the side of the road and I have to fess up. By now we are south of Senora and I needed to pee really badly (I had stayed in the car the first two breaks). Dad wants to “bust my butt”…Mom wants to go to the hospital…Crickett wants to know how many more towns before Mexico.

On the side of the road…I pee…we sit and eat baloney sandwiches and decide to see a doctor in Eagle Pass. The clinic was my first glimpse of the differences in the cultures of the countries. My ankle was broken but too swollen to cast. A $30 doctor visit and a $10 pair of crutches puts us back on the road. I win…we are doing this thing. Getting to and visiting Satillo deserves a story of its own. But on a rainy late afternoon we pull into Monterrey and check into the Gran Hotel Yamallel.

Remember the little crystal paperweight at the beginning of this story? OK. The next morning before anyone else wakes up. I pull the drapes in the living area of the room to a super wide view of the city from about 10 floors up. Just at the edge of what I could see was something shrouded in an early morning fog. I sat and watched it slowly melt away to reveal this beautiful mountain. Seems simple now but then it was my first real understanding of how large and different the world is. Something that amazes me still.

We would later visit Horsetail Falls in the mountain and have many adventures in the city and on the trip home. But this one moment was the whole trip to me. So if you drop by the house sometime and have a chance to go in my office. On the desk, in the shelves and even lying around on the floors you will see junk. I see the stories in the junk. My junk.