As if by magic

Way back in the mid-70s – when I was a considerably younger man than I am now (just about into my 20s in fact!), I had a friend with whom I have since completely lost touch. Given all that has happened since those far-off days (not least the fact that I now live on a different continent) that is really not very surprising.

At the time this friend was also the sound and lighting man for the first band in which I played. Handily he was – by trade – an electrician.

One day, when he and I were constructing something music related (building bass bins for the band’s PA, probably) he gave me a metal biscuit tin; the very one that can be seen in the illustration that heads this post. This tin was full of assorted screws and nuts and bolts that he had collected during his training and his time as an electrician. If ever I needed a screw for something all I had to do was to dig into the tin and I could be sure that I would find something that would be just the job.

The reason that I mention this now is because – as we were making progress with clearing out The Girl’s step-mother’s condo up in Nanaimo – we found some small jars containing random screws – the which I thought I would add to my collection.

As I duly did so it occurred to me that – though taking screws out of the tin is something that has happened repeatedly throughout the decades since the mid-70s – I have only very, very occasionally put anything into it. In spite of this – and here is where the magic comes into it – the level of screws etc in the tin is virtually identical to that which has been the case ever since I was gifted the collection more than fifty years ago.

Spooky – huh?!