Here at the Men’s Shed we are happy to meet so many people from around our
community, and even happier when they bring in a treasured item for us to repair, restore or
resurrect. Sue brought in a little ‘op shop’ find from years ago for us to remove layers of
good old Mission Brown and reveal its simple beauty underneath.
She called it ‘the Telephone Table.’ Because hidden at the bottom of the drawer were
lots of names and phone numbers, scrawled in pencil, biro or fountain pen, covering decades
of this little table’s life.
And isn’t this just like you and me? Life covers us in muck, overshadows us with
boredom or sidelines us into a corner – shoved into life’s op shop, however that may look.
Stay with me here. Because all of us have things written in our hearts, minds, and
spirits that stay with us, just like those years of names, numbers and squiggles. All that
experience and love, joy and tears, the rose’s sweet aroma and its cruel thorn – all buried
under Mission Brown.
So, we scraped and stripped, refastened and gently sanded, rubbed new oil into old
timber—and the little table glowed with life again.
And that’s what happens at the Men’s Shed, where blokes sometimes lay themselves
bare to each other, shoulder to shoulder with life’s burdens, and come out beaming, ready for
whatever new splotch may come.
Your Men’s Shed. Come on in and get rid of that Mission Brown.