It was pick-up day. The on-line auction was done, the winners notified, and man, I was sweating this one- suppose I forgot? That has happened more frequently than I like to admit over the holidays. I treasure my friends, not to mention the rigid professional obligations of the last almost 41 years of service. But I remembered almost immediately upon rising this morning shortly after 0445.

So I knew what I had to do- catch up on the messages and get presentable to go outside. Then go over to the Front Page shortly after 0900, and pick up what I had purchased at the big auction.

The minor problem was I did not know what I had purchased. I bid on five objects in the Ras Mus on-line site, and apparently had won three of them- Course of Action One, COA 2, and the throw-away, just like my days back on the Joint Staff in the Pentagon.

It was rainy, gray, and there was no liquor at the bar. George the owner (or about to be former owner, though it was good to have a discussion about the perils of Escrow, $55K checks and attendant lawyers while I tried to find a Philipps-head screw-driver to remove my new possessions from the walls).

It was a bit early to feel really right about standing on the seat of a booth in the back bar to remove the new impediments to streamlining my life, but here they are:

The auctions are always a crap-shoot, but I like the Ras Mus auctioneers. I no longer have the discretionary income to just do what I want, and plus, I have no wall-space remaining to fill, really, and this was a sort of token effort to preserve the memories of what is now officially a memory. Oh well. I knew people would want the framed Front Page of the Titanic sinking, since the existing bid was already $250 bucks, last time I checked. I bit my lip and bid on the Lucky Lindberg one that commemorated the Lone Eagle’s flight to Paris, and then the fall-backs that resonated from my time here in the Swamp.

Since they only gave me the catalogue numbers on the invoice, I wasn’t quite sure what I had won. I certainly got some strange stuff from the Willow auction, including a 24-inch skillet that I will never use, and hoped the brusk auctioneers could help me out when I got there. I was mildly surprised, after sloshing over in the rain. Lindy escaped my clutches, but I did have two that surprised me at bargain prices- it was only $17 bucks to have a framed recollection of Mr. Clinton’s public humiliation, something I shared while attending the Industrial College of the Armed Forces down at Fort McNair, and the earlier $24 Nixon thing that ripped us apart as a nation.

We used to think that sort of behavior was like criminal. How quaint the past seems now.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I spent only $5 for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s announcement that air mail could now get from the Mainland to the Lovely Islands in only a little more than twenty hours. I used to jog from our place in McGrew Loop on Honolulu out to Pearl City and around the old Pan Am compound that served the big silver seaplanes and think how times have changed since those amazing days. I think I know who is going to get stuck with this one, ultimately. But enough. I had done what I did, and needed to make it complete. There are consequences to not complying with the terms of Pick Up Day.

Once I found someone from whom to borrow the Philips screwdriver and locate the artwork (it was complex), things were fairly easy. There were some teams of Asian men taking down the flat screen TVs, Hispanic men dismantling restaurant stuff and cabinets and fixtures being wheeled out despite the specific instructions not to bring two-wheeled carts. George, the Greek owner, was keeping his composure as the parts of his business life exited the building.

My three things fit under my arm, and despite the still spritzing skies, I got my stuff and got out of there without apparent injury or dampness. I would admonish prospective bidders in futures auctions (I can’t imagine many more bars to close down, personally, to make me want to care) to bring their own frigging tools. It is unmanly to not be prepared.

At home, I looked at the images that had been seared into our lives in their time. I don’t need any more crap, we both know that, but to have something that says “Front Page” around the house will remind me of the first times I sat at that bar, and the people who served the drinks and sat by my side, alive and well and happy. Or depressed. We had it all there, just as we did at the Fabulous Willow Restaurant and Bar a few blocks away, and the beginning of the diaspora of the Willow Refugees.

I wish I had been fresher on the case, but it was a busy week. Leo, the former Big Pink Building Engineer, had been ailing this flu season, but was well enough to get back to work on his rehabilitation business. He picked up the new closet door the day before, and Miguel was back from Salvador, and both showed up shortly after the Thursday Business Development and Operations call concluded at 1100 the day before.

I am not completely sure this was the vision, but the workmanship was great, the re-framing of the apertures of the closets to fit the doors, and those appalling ceiling-height metal bi-folds were gone, and I could stop looking at all my clothing every time I changed rooms.

I think life is good, but I was pinned to the TV all day waiting for the work to be done, paid for and inspected, and the immigration issue was blaring as Miguel labored on my behalf. Yeah, I know. Irony is something, ain’t it?

I thought it was entirely appropriate to find myself unscrewing the artwork from the Front Page walls, tucking the long wood screws into my jeans, thanking the nice auction lady, and heading back out into the rain to go home with my treasures.

What the hell am I going to do with this crap? In only a couple decades it is all going to look like science fiction.

Copyright 2018 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com