There’s a difference between a trash pile and a junk pile on a farm. Trash is the term used for stuff ready to be disposed of, having no further value or need. Junk however, is stuff that just might eventually serve a useful purpose around the farm again some day.
At least those were my Uncle Loren’s definitions to apply to his cornucopia of junk. However, Mom would sometimes modify this by stating that one person’s junk was likely to be someone else’s trash. I couldn’t distinguish the difference when examining items from Uncle Loren’s junk pile beside his garage; it all looked like treasure to me.
That pile included broken tools, pulleys from abandoned machinery, iron wheels, pieces of harness, axe blades and broken axe handles, rusty sheep shears, plow shears, abandoned kitchen utensils like spoons, some cups and a skillet, colored bottles, jars, cans, a set of paddles from a churn, a crock containing some blue glass telephone pole insulators, a broken hand saw, mower cycle sections, twisted hay hooks, rusted padlocks, an anvil, part of a vice, some leather shoes, parts from a saddle, a coal bucket full of horseshoes, hoes and rakes missing handles, tobacco cans full of assorted rusty nails, a coffee can full of hinges, a rusty mole trap, a five gallon water container, some flower pots, a wheelbarrow frame, a dented enamel chamber pot, several pieces of rope and some unmatched leather gloves, a post hole digger with a twisted handle, and assorted bundles of wire.
On many summer Sunday afternoons while Mom and Aunt Mary visited in the house, Dad and my brother John and I would join Uncle Loren to sit in the shade beside his garage. John and I enjoyed examining these treasures more than their conversations.
