Anyone who has served in the military knows that at some point, their installation, military unit, or occupational speciality, will reorganize, merge, or close (“disestablish” in military-speak). In my experience aboard the USS TEXAS (CGN-39), when the ship entered the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton, Washington in 1992 for an overhaul but was decommissioned part-way through, one of my duties was to remove an accumulation of years of my division’s electronic maintenance materials, records, files, and publications. Twenty-five years ago, electronic storage required several cabinets and boxes in an auxiliary storeroom; paper binders, manuals and the local records pertaining to two prior decades of repair, acquisition and transfer of equipment had to be reviewed, removed and sent for destruction.
While not due to any closure, the reorganization of my garage this past week has drawn on some of those analytical skills in reviewing or disposing of things collecting cobwebs and dust in the garage. The last time I did this was at least a year ago. Since then, most things have been moved from on top of the rafters in the garage, to one side and then the other side of the interior. (I haven’t been able to park a car in the garage for at least seven months.) However, I did find (again) my Navy Senior Chief uniforms in a trunk, as well as a box with random uniform insignia in the former Navy working uniform style (blue-gray “camouflage” pattern). I sorted through boxes of old framed pictures, loose papers, photographs about 50 years old, cards and letters I sent my mother thirty or forty years ago from my duty stations at the time.
This was all as a result of putting Christmas decorations away for another year. Since I was boxing them up and looking to consolidate what my wife had already consolidated, I started to put other random boxes together. And now. perhaps, I will finally be able to move everything to the opposite side of the garage, so I can pull down all the uninsulated pegboard and half-tacked drywall on the other side, and install new. At least, before Spring cleaning.
Intermediate Maintenance Availability (IMA) periods stink. I have to continue using the garage (or at very least keep the laundry facilities operating) and preserve my access to my tools and “stuff” throughout this period. At least, I do not have to stand watch around the clock. But I do have to keep an eye out for refuse removal. The crew keeps putting the galley waste in the garage, when the pier trash bins are a short walk to the driveway. We do not tolerate any stink in my workspaces.