Key to History

How many of you have old keys hanging around? Maybe they're on your key ring, or perhaps in your junk drawer. At the Shop, we have keys hanging on nails right inside the office door, most of which haven't been used in ages. 

Some are the keys to cars which have long met the compactor.  I know that one key is for the last flatbed truck we had for delivering welders. That truck's been gone 30 years. We also still have the key from a 1961 Ford delivery truck. That truck Joe bought from 7-Up; you could see the 7-Up logo where it was painted over on the driver's door. Smaller keys are old shop locks for padlocks which are who knows where. Most of them have not been touched since well before Pops died, and he's been gone more than 12 years now.

Why don't we get rid of them? I dunno. It's habit to have them there I suppose. One key is attached to a key ring which has the baby from the first Incredibles cartoon. That's, what, 2004? The baby is no longer bald but has a nice head of dust hair. It's to be expected I suppose, after hanging inside the doorway for close to 21 years now.

Some of those keys might even fit locks we still have if we were to try and find them. I'm not fired up to find out though. I suspect me kids when clearing out the old barn hopefully way, way into the future, will wonder why the hell we kept them, and just toss them out. 

Yet the joke is on them. A few keys are actually painted to the woodwork, although I will admit it's kinda sad that we didn't bother taking them down the last time we painted. 

Ah, hell. I'll just call it art.