We have entirely too much crap… This is not really news to me… I’ve known it all my adult life. It’s just really starting to get to me over the past few years. I am a pack-rat and I know it. While trying to change my ways, I’ve really realized as of late that I come form a long line of pack-rats. Today I took a big step in removing some of my personal clutter, and another step in removing some of the inherited clutter. 1st off, I took a car load of old computers and electronics to the county E-Recycling drive. The guy checking me in must have thought I was nuts when I told him I had 9 computers, 1 monitor, 1 LCD projector, 2 LCD panels, 1 VCR, and a bag of assorted boards and cables. It feels good to have gotten rid of so much stuff, but, the sad part is… I could easily make 2 more of those trips and still have stuff left over. I hadn’t realized really how much I had accumulated.
The second part of the day involved more cleaning out of the room attached to my bedroom, that I will be taking over. This room was Sonja’s when I was a kid, then when she moved out, was my grandmothers. I swear to god, no-one in this family ever throws out papers. I now have about a car load of stuff to take to a shredder. There are tax returns from my great grandmother who has been dead for almost 20 years. There are boxes and boxes of old bills. I even found a stack of electric bills paid by my father… The funniest thing I found though, was my great grandmothers suitcase. She had apparently used it for a trip to the hospital. When I opened it, inside was her release papers fomr the hospital. “Important notes about your visit, including your 1967 medicare coverage statement”, a blanket (nothing special about that…); then under the blanket in a hospital bag I found a pair of slippers, and a smaller bag containing some grey and blue cloth. I started to remove them to see what it was, when I discovered they were quite heavy. I started to unroll one of the bundles and as I suspected, I discovered her silver. This silver has been a major bone of contention with various factions of the family. each accusing the others of stealing it. My grandmother was nearly ostrisized because it was decided she had to have stolen it. To her dying day she swore that when she helped clean out Great Grandma’s house the silver was NOT in the house. It turns out, out of dumb luck she did have the silver… Personally, I think great grandma took the silver to the hospital with her to keep someone from stealing it out of her house… She did things like that. 🙂
Palley is now making the call to notify the family, and perhaps this feud can get some resolution.
John's Musings 