There would have been less guilt if I'd just gone through the box and tossed things. But, no. It wasn't handled that straightforwardly. In one of the more recent iterations of clearing the garage, we found a box of old school things. It looked at first like is was mostly my Dear Son's things.
Did I toss it? No. I had set it aside, with the idea of going through it to at least see what was there. It was in a cardboard box. It got left on the back porch and ignored for weeks. Minor guilt every time I went out the back door. Then it got rained on. I hauled it in to dry. Shoved it into the front room for "someone" to go through. I knew it should be me, but was sort of hoping someone else would deal with it. A few weeks ago it someone shoved it into my bedroom during a "someone's coming over" clear of the front room.
I shoved it into a corner. Now I'm tired of it being there. So there will be tossing.
It's mostly Dear Son's old school reports. There are reports on:
Pandas
New York
Homo Sapiens
Walt Disney
Yellowstone
There's a quarterly report from his GATE class, report cards (sheets, really), letters to me, and art assignments from elementary school.
Ah, there are things from Beloved Son as well. I feel worst about that.
His high school football pictures and letters. Fortunately, those are in ziplock bags. No mildew.
A file full of grade reports, school newsletters, art work, and citations. Also letters to me
Reports on:
Richard Byrd
The Solar System
The Beaver
Mexico
Alaska
At least one manila folder of Eldest Son's things. There are letters to me, worksheets from the second and fourth grades, his high school graduation announcement,
There are also envelopes of my old taxes and the original loan papers for the house. The taxes are old enough to go. I have a different loan, now, so most of the loan papers can go. I may want to keep the original inspection report. I'll read it and see.
About five sixths of the old school things can go. And I can mail most of the things for Beloved Son to him. I'll take photos or scans of the school certificates that have their pictures on it. Pictures are good.
The box can be recycled with the rest of it.
Showing posts with label toss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toss. Show all posts
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Tossing a Few More Photos
I feel justified tossing inherited photos like this one.
This is Grandma L's front yard. The stump had sentimental value for her because it was made by a live Christmas tree that graced her front room when her kids were . . . well, I'm not sure how old they were, but they were all living with her. They had live Christmas trees two years in a row and planted them both in the front yard in a time before the street had sidewalks.
This is, I believe, the tree that wasn't planted with the pot. There were some casual mentions made about why one of the two trees was so much taller and bushier than the other. The short one had been stunted for several years until someone got curious enough to go digging and discovered that the poor thing was pot bound.
I don't mind keeping the story, but (sorry Grandma) I'm not keeping a picture of a sentimental stump. I've got lots of shots of people standing in front of the actual trees. That's enough to keep the story in mind.
OK, Grandma. You got me. If you stand one of my kids on the stump, I'll keep that picture. Well played.
Monday, March 18, 2013
TOSSING DAD'S STUFF
What do you see below?
They might not look like much to you. And the title includes the word "Stuff," which is not a word implying great worth.
It's even hard to read the covers unless you get in close. But Dad saved and treasured these, and after he was dead, Mom treasured them as well.
You could say that they treasured them the way that dragons are said to treasure gold. That is, they collected them and piled them with other treasured things (although in boxes in closets, rather than in a heap to lie on).
I am unsure if dragons are supposed to hoard gold for it's symbolic load, rather than their utility. Dragons don't exist and therefore writers are free to spin reasons that the gold might be useful.
In my parent's case, the books definitely represented Knowledge, Skill, and Industry. I don't think they've ever been read. They were saved so that they could be useful to the children one day, perhaps. Or the grandchildren.
They worried about basic building and making skills being lost. I can sort of see the point. They bought an empty lot and built their first house, with the help of relatives. Sometimes, looking back, it feels a bit borderline Urban Amish. From the Disney movies that they preferred, I'm sure they saw it as maintaining the American Pioneering Spirit.
I feel guilty tossing the American Pioneering Spirit in the trash. Even if the covers are all falling off and even intacts sets are going for about five bucks on ebay. There was no ebay back when these became treasure.
Back then, books were expensive. Working people didn't finish high school. If you inherited books, especially useful ones like these, you kept and treasured them.
I suspect that these had come from Ralph, which would have given them added symbolic weight. Dad didn't get along with many of the people he worked with. (Or his relatives or neighbors, but that's a different story.) Ralph was an older man when he was a younger one, and he respected him.
Ralph had an electrical workshop at home and tinkered with electrical things. He didn't just put in his time at work, he read up on things and talked about things and figured things out. He also gave my Dad rides to work for the year that he couldn't drive, himself, for medical reasons. It seemed that gratitude added to respect yields admiration. Dad admired Ralph.
When Ralph died, his wife asked Dad to take anything he wanted from Ralph's workshop. She said Ralph would want it that way. I'm pretty sure that the set of 1923 Hawkin's Electrical Guides came from Ralph. So did two oscilloscopes, some meters, and various bits and pieces.
I'd tell you what the bits and pieces were, but, hey - I was a kid when they were collected and stored out in the shed. I know about the oscilloscopes because I was able to use them, later, to get some extra credit for a high school physics class. The rest of the things just stayed in jars and boxes and drawers. I knew that some of the things out in the shed, in the upper garage, in the room off the garage, in the garage . . . (this represents moving to different houses, with different areas that Dad kept toolish things) . . . were Ralph things. But Dad had collected and bought other things, so I'd have been guessing if I tried to identify which things had been Ralph's.
Except I'm pretty sure that these were. And I'm throwing out Dad's gratitude and hopes for the future, America the way America used to be, and Knowledge, Skill, and Industry.
It's going to be a heavy trash bin this week.
___________
To lighten things up, the reason I'm tossing things (including the set of all that is treasured and worthy) is that I got up the energy to do some deep cleaning and organizing. And you can't do that without tossing things. Not really.
I have two big boxes for Goodwill. I threw away other things that didn't twang my guilt strings.
And I did this:
This is a completly cleaned and organized cupboard. There was also much other kitchening, but it is not complete and you will therefore see no photos.
This has room for other things. There are blanks spaces. Look at them.
Oh, and this isn't complete . . .
. . . but it had been bugging the b'geebers out of me, so you can see it, too.
Some of the things on it will be gone tonight. It had been covered with assorted things, assorted things with a heavy dust and grime buildup, in the case of the things on the bottom shelves . . . and the very top shelf. Now you can see horizontal wood.
That didn't sound right. Let's try again. You can see usable work space. Better.
The tubs don't go there, but as I said, the organizing is not complete, yet. But it's clean and there's space and I threw out a lot of other things, and donated a lot more. I'm letting that balance out my callous dismissal of Treasured Dreams.
They might not look like much to you. And the title includes the word "Stuff," which is not a word implying great worth.
It's even hard to read the covers unless you get in close. But Dad saved and treasured these, and after he was dead, Mom treasured them as well.
You could say that they treasured them the way that dragons are said to treasure gold. That is, they collected them and piled them with other treasured things (although in boxes in closets, rather than in a heap to lie on).
I am unsure if dragons are supposed to hoard gold for it's symbolic load, rather than their utility. Dragons don't exist and therefore writers are free to spin reasons that the gold might be useful.
In my parent's case, the books definitely represented Knowledge, Skill, and Industry. I don't think they've ever been read. They were saved so that they could be useful to the children one day, perhaps. Or the grandchildren.
They worried about basic building and making skills being lost. I can sort of see the point. They bought an empty lot and built their first house, with the help of relatives. Sometimes, looking back, it feels a bit borderline Urban Amish. From the Disney movies that they preferred, I'm sure they saw it as maintaining the American Pioneering Spirit.
I feel guilty tossing the American Pioneering Spirit in the trash. Even if the covers are all falling off and even intacts sets are going for about five bucks on ebay. There was no ebay back when these became treasure.
Back then, books were expensive. Working people didn't finish high school. If you inherited books, especially useful ones like these, you kept and treasured them.
I suspect that these had come from Ralph, which would have given them added symbolic weight. Dad didn't get along with many of the people he worked with. (Or his relatives or neighbors, but that's a different story.) Ralph was an older man when he was a younger one, and he respected him.
Ralph had an electrical workshop at home and tinkered with electrical things. He didn't just put in his time at work, he read up on things and talked about things and figured things out. He also gave my Dad rides to work for the year that he couldn't drive, himself, for medical reasons. It seemed that gratitude added to respect yields admiration. Dad admired Ralph.
When Ralph died, his wife asked Dad to take anything he wanted from Ralph's workshop. She said Ralph would want it that way. I'm pretty sure that the set of 1923 Hawkin's Electrical Guides came from Ralph. So did two oscilloscopes, some meters, and various bits and pieces.
I'd tell you what the bits and pieces were, but, hey - I was a kid when they were collected and stored out in the shed. I know about the oscilloscopes because I was able to use them, later, to get some extra credit for a high school physics class. The rest of the things just stayed in jars and boxes and drawers. I knew that some of the things out in the shed, in the upper garage, in the room off the garage, in the garage . . . (this represents moving to different houses, with different areas that Dad kept toolish things) . . . were Ralph things. But Dad had collected and bought other things, so I'd have been guessing if I tried to identify which things had been Ralph's.
Except I'm pretty sure that these were. And I'm throwing out Dad's gratitude and hopes for the future, America the way America used to be, and Knowledge, Skill, and Industry.
It's going to be a heavy trash bin this week.
___________
To lighten things up, the reason I'm tossing things (including the set of all that is treasured and worthy) is that I got up the energy to do some deep cleaning and organizing. And you can't do that without tossing things. Not really.
I have two big boxes for Goodwill. I threw away other things that didn't twang my guilt strings.
And I did this:
This is a completly cleaned and organized cupboard. There was also much other kitchening, but it is not complete and you will therefore see no photos.
This has room for other things. There are blanks spaces. Look at them.
Oh, and this isn't complete . . .
. . . but it had been bugging the b'geebers out of me, so you can see it, too.
Some of the things on it will be gone tonight. It had been covered with assorted things, assorted things with a heavy dust and grime buildup, in the case of the things on the bottom shelves . . . and the very top shelf. Now you can see horizontal wood.
That didn't sound right. Let's try again. You can see usable work space. Better.
The tubs don't go there, but as I said, the organizing is not complete, yet. But it's clean and there's space and I threw out a lot of other things, and donated a lot more. I'm letting that balance out my callous dismissal of Treasured Dreams.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Glee
It's been awhile, hasn't it. A couple of weeks back, I counted up the photos I had sorted and labeled that weekend, both in the computer and in hand. That is, they were the same photos. They had been previously scanned, and I labeled and sorted the photos while also labeling and sorting the scans in my computer.
There were 454 of them. It had been a three day weekend on one hand, but on the other, I hadn't worked continuously. That finished all of the photos that had been scanned over Christmas break.
At that point, the old scanning sleeve was scratched enough that the scanner was scanning the scratches more than the pictures, so I had to stop. I haven't been able to pry replacement sleeves out of either the manufacturer or Kodak. Their online customer service sucks.
I tried buying a new scanner, but can't find a simple one, like the old one at any local store. I tried online and found a larger version of the little scanner I was using. I just sent it back. The note I made on Facebook about it reads:
Bought a new scanner. Was all excited. Had hundreds of photos queued up to be scanned. Sucker doesn't work. Sending back. Repacking photos. Damn.
There is a picture. The problem with the scanner was that it wouldn't pull the photos through. So my Dear Son tried pushing them through, to see if that would work.
At least if they ever get the rollers to work, the scan part works fine.
I still have no scanner, so I've been pre-sorting and sometimes labeling more photos. There are still boxes and boxes in the garage.
The good news is that I've discovered that the best way to store the pictures is in index card archive boxes. The bad news is that I now have a box full of unscanned photos and no scanner. And for most of it, what I really need is just a new sleeve.
But that's not what I came here to say. I came to share the glee of finding 9 packets of pictures that could be thrown away with only the mildest of guilt. Wheee. They were Gerry's photos.
Gerry was my Mom's second husband. The photos didn't get thrown away automatically just because they were his. They got tossed because he would take a lot of pictures of, say, the view from someplace he had visited or from the property where he would build his house. But it wouldn't be labeled, so it would just be a bunch of overexposed trees, with a few fronts of trucks thrown in.
No people + no labels usually gets chucked no matter who took them. Oh, there was also a dead deer on a mule and what looked like damaged furniture. I'm guessing the first was from a hunting trip and the second was evidence for a claim against a moving company. Not much use for posterity, especially with no smiling hunters in any shot.
The pictures of fish all have smiling fishermen holding them. The ones with Gerry in them are being kept for now. I may toss them later, but I won't be able to toss them with guilt-free glee. And that's what I experienced last night, folks. Nearly guilt-free glee.
There were 454 of them. It had been a three day weekend on one hand, but on the other, I hadn't worked continuously. That finished all of the photos that had been scanned over Christmas break.
At that point, the old scanning sleeve was scratched enough that the scanner was scanning the scratches more than the pictures, so I had to stop. I haven't been able to pry replacement sleeves out of either the manufacturer or Kodak. Their online customer service sucks.
I tried buying a new scanner, but can't find a simple one, like the old one at any local store. I tried online and found a larger version of the little scanner I was using. I just sent it back. The note I made on Facebook about it reads:
Bought a new scanner. Was all excited. Had hundreds of photos queued up to be scanned. Sucker doesn't work. Sending back. Repacking photos. Damn.
There is a picture. The problem with the scanner was that it wouldn't pull the photos through. So my Dear Son tried pushing them through, to see if that would work.
At least if they ever get the rollers to work, the scan part works fine.
I still have no scanner, so I've been pre-sorting and sometimes labeling more photos. There are still boxes and boxes in the garage.
The good news is that I've discovered that the best way to store the pictures is in index card archive boxes. The bad news is that I now have a box full of unscanned photos and no scanner. And for most of it, what I really need is just a new sleeve.
But that's not what I came here to say. I came to share the glee of finding 9 packets of pictures that could be thrown away with only the mildest of guilt. Wheee. They were Gerry's photos.
Gerry was my Mom's second husband. The photos didn't get thrown away automatically just because they were his. They got tossed because he would take a lot of pictures of, say, the view from someplace he had visited or from the property where he would build his house. But it wouldn't be labeled, so it would just be a bunch of overexposed trees, with a few fronts of trucks thrown in.
No people + no labels usually gets chucked no matter who took them. Oh, there was also a dead deer on a mule and what looked like damaged furniture. I'm guessing the first was from a hunting trip and the second was evidence for a claim against a moving company. Not much use for posterity, especially with no smiling hunters in any shot.
The pictures of fish all have smiling fishermen holding them. The ones with Gerry in them are being kept for now. I may toss them later, but I won't be able to toss them with guilt-free glee. And that's what I experienced last night, folks. Nearly guilt-free glee.
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