The Prized Possession

My name is Karlo Asko, and there it stops: at the "o." What would it look like on a wall with a prestigious degree from one of the universities that dust the earth like fall snow in the White Mountains? Not sure, I chose a different trail through the double diamond of my life. I'm just a man, a man who has lived for 52 years and has loved and learned, like you: through Experience. My credentials, like most around me today, come from life, from the mundane to the truly magnificent. I sometimes feel like an exuberant 12-year-old with dirt behind my ears, a runny nose, and a big blank open space before me as big as a galaxy...my future. But, my friend, at other times I feel like I am 90 years old, looking back with that same exuberance, sans the dirt and snot but with a little fog that rolls over the beach of my memories. 

Memories...of Trash Kan Karl and Little Karl

I am Trash Kan Karl. I am the memory of a little boy growing up in suburban America, just up the street, around the corner, on the next block from you. I'm in my 50’s now and, over the years, have not wanted to open the lid on my Trash Kan. I have sat on the lid of my memories for half a century because they might have an odor that twitches the nostrils of my psyche and causes retches within the deepest part of me. But you know, my friend, I think I can open the lid and peer inside. Yes, there will be memories that are smelly; ones that wrinkle the nose and cause a wretch. There will be memories that are unsightly; ones that will try to make me look away in disgust and guilt.

But I'm not distracted by those memories, my friend. You see after 50 years I know there are treasures in that Kan. Those are what I long for, what I yearn for, the treasures that may be easy to find, or may be at the bottom of “Trash Kan Karl."

I hope you can connect with the sounds and the sights and the things that I pull from my Kan. May Trash Kan Karl help you, my friend, find the “treasures in your Kan."

Memories of my Father and His Prized Possession

I woke up the other day with my lid ajar. You see I awoke with a memory of Big Karl.

He was piloting his prized possession: his boat. Twenty+ feet of pure 70’s hot rod day cruiser. Two-tone metallic brown bow steps, shined to the brilliance of the afternoon sun. I was in the water just floating, hot anger bubbling to a boil inside my scrawny bones. Here comes big Karl piloting his prized possession with the same expertise as a fighter pilot in some far-off war. There he is, passing a skier with his arm high like a statue of an ancient warrior after a prized battle. (I don’t think his arm can go up now. But it can as I search the bottom of Trash Kan Karl.) He comes around my shoulder with perfect precision, feeding the tow rope right to me just like I knew he would, with the biggest Smile on his face....a smile that I would put at the bottom of Trash Kan Karl for some strange adolescent reason, not to be found until now.

Why was I angry?

I was always angry when I wasn’t perfect. You see I had probably been water skiing for an hour straight and I “bit it." I was mad at myself but that blinded me from really seeing that Smile. The Smile of Big Karl as he piloted his prize possession, pulling me and my sister for hours and hours with that Smile that I just now remembered.

You see my friend, my Dad's prize possession was a man's boat, a pure unadulterated 1970’s man's boat. As I reach down some 45 years later into Trash Kan Karl, I can see it’s a man's boat: My Dad’s Prized Possesion - 455-cubic-inch Oldsmobile big-block gas guzzling monster of a boat. I can see it plain as day. It was a Berkeley jet that could push its glistening hull through a teaspoon of water at speeds that would make your cheeks wiggle, your eyes stream, and your hair stick up on end, both literally and figuratively. I can still hear John Denver playing through its hi-fi 8-track stereo system. You see my friend, I can see it and feel it as if I were sitting next to it today. It was truly a man's boat. Big Karl’s boat. I see more than the boat ... I see the gel-coat paint that my Dad could shine up like a mirror and there I see my Dad's smile in the reflection.

From boats to bikes

If I asked you what a banana seat and a basket with daisies reminded you of, what would you say. A Boy's bike? No, my friend, I think you would agree that it lights a memory of a 1970’s girl's bike. Big Karl tried to take off the banana seat and basket, and put on a big leather spring seat. He tried, but that fixer-upper hand-me-down from my sister just wouldn’t do it. I wanted ... I needed... my own Prized Possession.

As I reach down to the bottom of Trash Kan Karl I recall that trip to the bike shop that day long ago. Big Karl understood my need, he understood a prized possession. We walked out of that bike shop that day with a blue-on-blue Diamondback Chrome-moly stunner of a BMX bike. No basket, no banana seat and no daisies on this serious 70’s boy's bike. This, my friend, was now the center of my life. It was the reason I ate, slept, and moved. This was now my Prized Possession.

But what really was the Prized Possession?

As I look back from my perch, my collective experience some 45 years later, neither of these things should have been a prized possession. That beautiful 2-step Day Cruiser with a shine that lit the night, and that blue-on-blue Diamondback BMX that made other little boys drool, are long gone. That boat has long ago been torn apart and abandoned alone in a field somewhere. That bike has long ago been left to rot in a lonely place far away from the face of a young boy and his Dad.

I didn’t realize this my friend, until now, until I am past the middle and Big Karl’s eyes have dimmed and his body is giving out. I’m not Little Karl any more ... He is not Big Karl. It is only now that I have realized what was my Prized Possession. You see, my friend, as I look back, my prized possession wasn’t my bike and his prized possession wasn’t his boat, it was each other. These memories of my Dad are not lying abandoned in a field somewhere, they are here with me, and although they may be at the bottom of Trash Kan Karl, they are there and ready to be brought to the light, cleaned and shined up like that 2-step Day cruiser and that blue-on-blue BMX. They are ready to be released from Trash Kan Karl, just as bright and shiny as the day they were made.

My Dad was my Prized Possession and I was his.

If you reach deep into your Kan... Who would you find?

Who is your Prized Possession?