Story by Bill L. Olson

I’ll admit I come by it naturally — genetically or by influence.  My Dad kept everything.  In his early real estate career he was a homebuilder.  He even kept the form lumber that framed up the concrete slab.  Once striped he would have the form material beaten with a hammer to knock off the dried concrete.  He even built a house with the left-over material and nicked named it “Scrap-O.”  It’s still standing and a good-looking home.

When it came to paper he was even worse.  Instruction manuals, certainly a variety of maps and charts plus spiral notebooks filled with dated entries. He just knew he might need something from them someday.  Plus, he had some system to find what he knew was hidden information.  It was in one of those piles or boxes.

I credited my late wife Ann with bringing order and some discipline to my life.  I nicknamed her “Little Miss Detail.”  In fact, my business files were set up by her, and I can certainly find items so long as I can remember the file name styling.

When it comes to outdoor gear, maps, charts and containers that might be useful I am a packrat.  I am most guilty when it comes to maps of where I hunted and nautical charts, particularly of waters I fish or have visited.

As my years continue to accumulate, I realize both Dad and Ann were correct.  Admittedly I tend to learn a bit more toward my Dad’s tendencies.  I could certainly do better with the organization my wife tried to instill.

When it comes to nautical charts I have learned there is a lot of information that becomes useful when some former administration implemented his idle-iron program to rid the Gulf of America from non-producing rigs.  It could be well platforms, standpipes, old wreck locations plus other things that provide some fish attracting structure to the almost featureless bottom of the Gulf.

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