Blog 3503 – 06.06.2025

Pick Your Pleasure, Pick Your Treasure

The Latin phrase “Horror vacui” is a philosophy and scientific term attributed to Aristotle which literally translates “the horror of a vacuum” but is more commonly expressed, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” The tendency of empty spaces to be filled is one of those self-evident things that explains why not only closets and cupboards seem to always run out of room, but why in this country (the land of plenty for so many) storage facilities are going up every day and many people are paying big fees to rent space to keep all the stuff they no longer have room for in their sprawling multi-room mini mansions.

Thirteen years ago when I received my first six month away from home work assignment to work as a contract welding inspector on the construction of a section of crude oil pipe feeding a refinery in Melvindale, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit) I packed everything that I thought I might need for an extended stay into my two door Jeep Wrangler. There was barely enough room left for me behind the wheel to drive it to Detroit.

I stayed in a motel on that first work assignment and the second also which was a two month long assignment in Kenai, Alaska. It took me seven days of ten hour driving and staying in motels along the way to get there. And I was paid mileage and per diem for it all. What a scenic and wonderful all expenses paid trip.

After the Alaska job was completed my next assignment was supposed to be in Colorado but before I got there I received a call to report to Green River, Wyoming for a briefing on a twenty-nine mile section of gas pipeline near Baggs, Wyoming. One of the first contract agency supervisor that I had advised me that if I ever got a long work assignment away from home that I should buy a used RV Camper Trailer to stay in. He said that the savings on my per diem (tax free additional pay for lodging and meals) would more than pay for a good used one in six month. A couple of miles before I got to the office that I was suppose to report to in Green River I saw a small used RV Camper Trailer for sale. And after the meeting I bought it.

For most of the next eight years that 19 foot pull behind “Little House On The Prairie On Wheels” was my home away from home. After extensive repairs to the front end and rear end of the Jeep I bought a new Dodge Ram 1500 pickup in Crawfordsville, Indiana to better pull my little home from place to place (the additional tax tree pay I got for mileage made my monthly truck payments)

Not long after I began living in the Camper I realized that any time I bought anything that meant I would have to get rid of something else. I was grateful for my small living space as it helped me to ever be evaluating and reevaluating what my true treasures were and are. The old adage, “One man’s junk is another’s man’s treasure comes to mind.”

These lines from a favorite song also come to mind:

There’s a house we can build

Every room inside is filled

With things from far away

Special things I compile

Each one there to make you smile

On a rainy day

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UNCWY9PEiYixUsn0_6LjpkTriqrj-PAs/view?usp=drivesdk

A Million Dreams