I have to admit it…I love the character that Carroll O’Conner played on All in the Family whom we all know as none other than: Archie Bunker. He called his sweet wife Edith a “dingbat” but Edith was anything but a “dingbat.” Archie was forever mispronouncing words. He referred to Edith’s doctor as a “gronacologist.” Rich people drove “Lincoln Contrinentals.” And things of special value have “sentrimentral value.” Even men like Archie own things that they consider to have “sentrimentral” value.” I was reminded of this fact when I heard a classicsong by Randy Travis last week entitled: “The Box.”

The lyrics are as follows:

On the top shelf in the closet,
In the workshop where he spent his extra time
Was a dust wooden box that I had never noticed till that time
And we set on the table and carefully, we opened up the top
And stared into the memory
Daddy kept inside the box
There was a letter from mamma, when she went out to Reno
To help her sister out in 62
And a flower from Hawaii, when they went on vacation
It was the first time that my Daddy ever flew.
And the pocket knife I gave to him on Fathers day
Years ago, I thought it had been lost
We all thought his heart was made from solid rock
But that was long before we found the box
I guess we always knew it but “I love you” was hard for him to say
Some men show it easy and some just never seem to find the way
But that night I began to see the softer side of some I had lost
I saw the love he kept inside the first time we opened up the box

I think most men have a box stashed out somewhere. I know I do. In my “box” I have a golf ball with the Air Force Academy logo on it. Randall bought a sleeve of them for me when he visited Colorado Springs on a school trip years ago. I have one of them in my golf bag and one in my “box.” I also have all of the letters that Jan sent me the summer we were dating. She was gone to New Mexico serving as a camp counselor most of that summer of 1983. It felt like an eternity. I suppose my box is indicative of the love I have kept inside…

I am more like Archie Bunker than I want to admit. Archie was stubborn and foolish. I can be too. Archie did not express his love very well. And I could do much better too!  But Archie did keep things of “sentrimentral” value.” Like the man in the song they represented the love he had for his family. I am grateful tonight for my  family. And I am thankful for the box full of “sentramentral”  things that remind me of my love for them. I too have a box.