I suspect many of you fellers have keys that do not have tags on them to designate their locks. We on this rock pile have enough old keys to melt them down and build a new lock! I have an old metal desk in the corner of the vet shack at the barn. I suppose it was my idea to sit there and enter the records gathered as we worked cattle into a book. Didn't happen yet, but as long as there is breath there is hope!

I was looking for a watch fob for an old pocket watch yesterday afternoon; a feller at church said he wanted one. I remember having one and seeing it in the desk drawer. I pulled the drawer open and was amazed to see so many loose keys scattered around the bottom of the drawer. I moved the baler book around some, and more keys fell to the bottom. The watch fob was there, hard as a rock and unusable, but the keys were not rusty!

I began to try to visualize locks on doors around the place, or gates with chains wrapped around corner posts and locked tight. I ran the shop and garage through my mind and could not come up with one lock. The tack room, such as it is, never even had a door that would close tight, let alone be locked.

I put the keys in an old brown bag that at one time held screws and took them into the house to ask if anyone there could solve the mystery. The grands were interested in looking at the keys, and the offspring did not even glance at the mess. My close relative was busy taking cookies out of the oven and told me not to dump the dirty things in the house. So the dilemma continues.

I have thought about the keys and wondered why a sensible feller like me would have all those things. I realize you usually get two keys with every lock, but that does not begin to answer the riddle at all. Now I am thinking about getting a locksmith to come out and install one of those fancy push-button locks on the front and back door of headquarters. I hear the deadbolt and security locks can be controlled by the little box and you never need a key. Then, thinking as I do, I wondered what a feller would do when the battery in the control unit died while we were away.

It is my opinion, and everyone has one, the answer to some puzzles is never to be found. We may never know if Ms. Earhart was captured by natives and worshiped as a goddess, but even that did not distract the revolutions of the earth around the sun or the moon around the earth. We won't ever know what happens in a person's mind to make them disappear for years and then show up as if nothing is unusual about it at all. Now the key mystery is so insignificant that even I, the person most distraught, have decided to let it go. The mystery most of us have to solve is how to be decent humans and make a living!

For your information, time does not always tell.

Bill is the pen name used by the Gravette-area author of this weekly column. Opinions expressed are those of the author.