Foot Locker Treasures by john clare

since i was a boy of five, my father has carried these olive drab green World War Two footlockers with him. I remember in the early sixties moving the footlockers from Mr Emory Rudd's shed where he had stored them. We moved them to Monticello. From Monticello to Kentucky, then back to Florida to Crawfordville, to finally come to rest in Williston. From time to time over the years I would look in the boxes mostly full of old tools and various things and wonder then forget about them.
This past March, my father passed away, and we now have the sad task of having to disperse his property and things. Going through the hot metal buildings, I again came upon the eight stacked foot lockers. My son and I lugged and tugged and loaded them onto the trailer and hauled them to our home in Lake City.
Two of the footlockers were especially heavy, and these were filled with old books, some really old, from the early 1800's.
I look forward this coming week to getting these old books out of the dark, musty footlocker and into a more controlled environment. Problem is, our home is overflowing now with relics and what nots, my wife about to have a fit.


In Air Corp foot lockers from the second world war
The old books were stacked, forgotten and stored.
Today I opened the shed and recovered the gems.
From 1856 a copy of Isaac Watts selected hymns.
Older yet, selected notes from John Wesley's journal.
Old truths hidden again see the light eternal!
As guardian of the old volumes
May I be a worthy holder of these rare rods blossoming.
Too frail to read, we hold them in reverence.
As if from eternity to us they have been lent
To return someday to the authors of
the rare and faded parchment.


It was indeed an exciting and sad prospect, opening the old boxes, the old smell of the ages emanating forth from the relics. It was like opening sealed time capsules. Some of the old tools I remembered as a child. Others I had no idea what they were as technology had long updated them to unrecognizable objects.
Would that I had a mansion or a museum in my list of earthly possessions, a place to store the hoards of things I reluctantly hold onto. I am the only sentimental soul of our family, so I am the guardian, the last bastion for these visitors from the past. After I go, they also go. Perhaps Nathaniel will capture my love for things old and past and carry on. We shall see. We shall wait and see.