I’ve spent the holidays moving.
The owner of the condo in which I have lived for 12 months decided to sell, mine and the one across from mine.
“I am going to buy a beach cottage for my wife,” he said to me when he called.
“I own a beach house already,” I said to him, referring to the home I share with my wife on St. Simons Island.
It is not really a beach house. It is closer to the marsh, and we have thought about turning it into an AIRBNB. If we do, we will join the mad rush to accommodate people with too much money looking to enjoy the good life anywhere close to some center of cultural or natural attraction.
Which is why I had a hard time finding anywhere to move in or near Hendersonville, North Carolina. It is a first-class region for living the good life, with mountains, streams, and trails everywhere. Plus, the Biltmore House and lots of mountain music.
But the excruciating task of moving has pushed me to a very difficult decision.
But first let me explain what I had to move.
Boxes full of fifty years of ministerial memorabilia: correspondence, sermons, notes, articles, manuscripts (unpublished, of course), pictures (including more than a few already framed and once hung on the wall), cards and letters from both kind and critical parishioners, certificates and diplomas, magazines and books and books and more books.
Add that to boxes and boxes of family pictures and childhood stuff. I found a Valentine’s Day card sent to me in the sixth grade! I kept it because it is truly a wonderful poem: “Would you for nickel or stick of gum …” is the way it begins. I can quote the whole thing.
Would you like to buy it?
I’ve decided to sell all of it.
I have been encouraged in this matter by reading of others selling their life’s work. Bruce Springsteen just sold his entire catalog to Sony Music for $500 million, which is the largest deal of its kind to date. That’s more than my library will command, I know.
Last year, Bob Dylan sold his catalog of music, some of which dates back to the 1960s, to Universal Music Group for $400 million. Others joining this trend are Neil Young, Shakira, Fleetwood Mac and Motley Crue.
And now Dwight A. Moody.
I used to think my children or grandchildren might want something. I wish I had more documents and books from my father and his father. Later, I imagined some library or archive would find my stuff irresistible.
Maybe, Georgetown College, where I have been a student, graduate, trustee, faculty, and donor for fifty years. This could be an opportunity for friend and colleague Rosemary Allen, just named as president of the college. She could start her tenure with a press conference: “I am thrilled to begin my service as your president with announcing that we have acquired, through the generosity of a wealthy donor, the complete library and papers of 1972 graduate …..”
Probably not.
But when I see her in May for the golden anniversary reunion of the class of 1972, I will give her a copy of my self-published book, It’s About Time: A Memoir of Ministry at Georgetown College.
She better take it now because otherwise it is going in the sale.
I have secured an agent who is, even as I write, preparing a catalogue of my collected works. Morgan Freeman has agreed to voice-over the video describing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some publishing house or movie studio.
Are you surprised I mention the movies? That just means you don’t know my family very well. We’ve had more life drama than all the Hollywood movies of 2021 combined.
I’ll tell you the truth. What really set my mind in this sell-it-all-and-retire direction is a song. A John Prine song. Well, actually, Shel Silverstein wrote the lyrics, but I first heard it as sung by Mr. Prine. Are you surprised again?
I feel about my stuff just like they did about that guitar.
This guitar is for sale, I’ll let her go cheap. She’s pretty to look at but she don’t earn her keep. She can roar like the west wind, she can weep, she can wail. But the tunes that she plays just ain’t selling today. This guitar is for sale.
She lay close beside me on cold winter nights. And she got me in trouble, and she won me some fights. She’d tell you some stories about junkyards and jails and a fool with a song and a dream that went wrong. But hard times and troubles been dogging our tale. So if you’ve got the dough, buddy, take her and go. This guitar is for sale, this guitar is for sale.
And so is my stuff. Just giving you a head’s up.
