Go Through Those Boxes More Than Once: Goodbye Mr. Max Rafferty

My Beloved Son and his wife (who are expecting - yay!) go through everything they own twice a year to see what they can throw or give away.  You can see the results of the constant pruning in their house, which is spacious and easy to clean.  This is not a thing that either of them learned from me.  

I am trying, though.  Since I'm not at their level, yet, I sometimes prune in stages.  Recently we did some organizing in the garage and I brought in three boxes to sort through.  From the look of them, it's all family stuff.  When I put the boxes away, I think they were meant to be deep storage.  Today, I'm looking at them as being full of things that I couldn't bring myself to throw away, yet.  And I'm giving myself dispensation to prune in stages.  If it ends up being one box going back in the garage, I'll consider it a big step forward.  And who knows, maybe that's what I intended to happen when I stored them.

What's in the boxes?  Well, I found one thing I can let go.

Not sure where this came from.  I had one uncle who did political networking that was job-related, and my father was more than a little right wing.  

Either one of them would occasionally get involved in political mailings, so this could have been a leftover from one of those.  The lack of address means that it wasn't mailed to Dad, but he could have picked it up when visiting a local campaign headquarters or it could have been passed out in a door to door campaign.  

It wasn't a campaign that Dad was particularly active in, or I'd remember the candidate.  As it is, the name is only vaguely familiar, and I'd have to look him up to see if he won or lost.

I suppose I could make a comment on 'the hoax of "forced housing"' vs 'housing equality', but I'm not feeling the need at the moment.  For now I'll just shrug and say it was the sixties.

I have no clue why this political pamphlet was in my Mother's things.  I only know that I hung onto it because it felt vaguely historical.  I have a weakness for that.

So, if anyone finds any historical value in this little, unmailed piece of paper, you have these images to download.  Take them with my blessing.  Unlike the cooking pamphlet, I didn't hold onto this one to see if anyone else wanted it, though.  The paper version has been recycled.  

Recycling wasn't one of Max's issues, but then it was the sixties.  

I could decide that it's sad that it took all this effort to throw out one piece of paper, but I won't.  I'm enjoying this little effort at memorializing my life and trash.  Goodbye, Mr. Rafferty.  

Climbing Mount Guilt (Books)

Sometimes you can measure guilt.  

This particular stack of guilt is eight point three feet high.

Let's try a different perspective.

This is a stack of all of the books that I've bought that I have not finished.  About a quarter of them haven't been started.  

The books in the shelves have been read, and so have the books in the shelves in my bedroom.  Not to mention many, many books that have been read and donated to the library or the thrift store. 

I tell myself that this is not a horrible thing.  But like any unfinished thing, they sort of nag at me.  "You meant to read me," they say.  "It's not like reading is a hard thing."

They're each one more unfinished thing that implies that I'm the sort of person who doesn't finish things.  Well, I may not have read them, but I've used them, now.  I have the photo to prove it.  They were, for a few hours, an art installation.  For a few hours, they were a homage to my guilt.  True, I had to add four books that I'd actually read to make it high enough to touch the ceiling, which was necessary in order to keep it from falling.  But eight point three feet of it is solid guilt.

(You'd think books would be steadier in a stack, but without the pressure of the ceiling, it wouldn't have stayed up for five seconds.  One of the minions had to steady the stack while I added the cappers.  Even then, the top third came down in the night.  It didn't wake me.)

While they were stacked, and half-stacked, I took advantage of the space and cleared the last of the plaster dust and hunks off of the bedroom shelves.  So that's another success.  (The plaster was from when we replaced my bedroom window, going to double-paned from feel the breeze - another success.  I could feel guilty about clearing the plaster three weeks after the window replacement, but I won't.  We also replaced the siding on that side of the house, and there have been other things I've been doing to clear out the debris from that.  Including buying a trap and trapping a cat that had crawled under the house while the siding was off.)

But let's look at the books again.  You'd think that stacking them up like that would make them more intimidating, but it doesn't.  When they were salted through the rest of the books, they nagged at me a lot.  Now I've seen them in their entirety.  I've seen the actual magnitude.  And you know what?  I can deal with them.

They now have a seven foot long shelf in my bedroom all to themselves.  A few of them are in the shelves you see by the desk.  And the rest are, um, still in a stack.  But it's tucked beside the desk shelves, where it isn't in the way.

Why are they stacked on the floor?  Because they're part of an art installation, for one.  I like having one.  For another, I like having usable space in the second set of shelves by my desk.  It helps me keep my desk clear.  It looks airier when it's not filled with books, and I can use the look of open space.  

The remainder stack is maybe three feet tall.  I can deal with that.  And with everything in order, I've started reading - - a new book that my daughter-in-law sent me.  It's Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded by John Scalzi, and I'm loving it.  Hey, I am not going to be controlled by an art installation.  

Do You Know What This Thing Is?

This is the story of an inherited piece and the joy of Google.  When I first unpacked this, I thought it was an incense burner.  Then I noticed that there were no vents to allow smoke to escape.

So if it wasn't an incense burner, what is it?  The loop on the handle looked like it's meant to hold the lid, but the lid loop didn't fit into it. (I later learned that this was due to corrosion.)

There were two bird's heads on the lip of the main body.  They looked like they're meant as hooks or supports.  I thought that maybe they would hold the lid tipped up, to let smoke out, but I wasn't able to make that work.

There was a grate, which would work for an incense burner.  And maybe the lid was supposed to be used to smother it, saving incense for later.

There was a mark on the bottom.  Meriden Silver Plate - Quadruple Plate 1339 1/2 - with a lion holding a rose. 

OK.  That's googlable.  Aaaand, it's a butter dish!  The grate is called a pierced liner "which served to keep the butter above melting ice."  And the lid IS supposed to hang from the handle. The bird's head supports are meant to hold a butter knife.  Cool beans!  I never knew that butter used to be sold in "one pound circular cakes, which measured roughly four inches in diameter."

Now I have to decide whether to keep it or not. 

If It Feels Like History, It's Harder For Me To Toss

I don't know which relative I inherited this catalog from, but the fact that it feels a little historic has made it more difficult for me to just toss it away.



New Illustrated Catalog of Fine Linen Drawn Work
A.B. Culver Jr.
Aguascalientes, Mexico

So I scanned it and I'm posting it here.  If it has any historical value, it has been memorialized.  I couldn't find a date on it, but other booklets in the box were from the late thirties or early forties.  Not that my relatives sorted things by date. 

I won't blame you if you don't want to look through all of these doilies and handkerchiefs.

I'm trying to remember the last time I saw a doily.  A real doily - paper doilies under brownies or cupcakes don't count.

Ah, look.  They claim to have made the "very first fine linen handkerchief ever made of Drawn Work. . ."  Definitely history!  Well, if you believe it.

Centerpieces, Tea Cloths, Lunch Cloths, and Table Cloths . . . I'm assuming that these are prestige items.

My Grandma D had a few doilies.  She had many more antimacassars.  I think that was because she had more comfy chairs for people to sit in than she had horizontal surfaces with nothing being stored on them.

I think my mother had one or two doilies.  She used them under decorative candy dishes.  Usually the candy dishes were empty.

Although I have vague memories from when I was very young of candy dishes with hard candies that had been sitting in the dish long enough to have sealed together into one, dish-sized hard candy.  That could have been at some half-remembered great aunt's house, though, rather than at home.

Oh, hey!  Collars and cuffs and shirt waists!  I've seen lace lady's collars, but not men's collars.

I don't have any personal experience with lady's lace collars, but I was aware that they existed.  They could be moved from one dress to another.  From the ad copy above: "Wheel Collars are now all the rage and we make the latest and most popular styles." 

Ending with lady's collars and cuffs and a baby cap.  I'm going to assume that you have to send for the price list because the catalog was expected to be used for years. 

And now that the whole catalog has been posted, I can throw the catalog out.  Even if the company were still in business, "North Side of Plaza" probably isn't a good enough address any more.  So I wouldn't be able to send for the price list.  I will have to face my future doily free. 

Grandma L's Diary

I read through Grandma L's 1960 diary.  I'd have been four that year.  I dog-eared the pages where she was complaining about my parents, who were doing it all wrong.  Also pages that contained OMG.  I may post some of it here.

I'm definitely going to type it up somewhere and then throw the book away.  That will only leave about two dozen to go. 

Let This Be A Record

Today I resorted the things in my room.  The main goal was to consolodate everything that I still need to sort or value and then get rid of into one set of shelves.  Not the pictures still to be sorted.  Those are separate.  This is stuff that I still haven't convinced myself I couldn't get a few dollars for, and letters that I haven't read. 

I may be keeping more than is sensible, but the pile gets smaller every time I sort through it.  Right now I'm sorting through old 45 rpm records. 

Dad's:  Begin the Beguine, The Shifting, Whispering Sands, Deep Purple (Bing Crosby), My Happiness, To Each His Own, What Is A Girl?/What Is A Boy? (Jackie Gleason), Cold, Cold Heart (x3), Daddy's Little Girl, Riders in the Sky (x2), Tennessee Waltz, The Glow Worm, Tumbling Tumbleweeds, Your Cheatin' Heart, You Always Hurt the One You Love, Born to Lose, Mockin' Bird Hill, The Wayward Wind, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, and It's Been a Long, Long Time.

Mine: Rainbow Connection, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, and Blowin' In the Wind/Puff the Magic Dragon.

Unknown:  Chasing A Dream, Blueberry Hill, I'll Take Care of Your Cares/Ballerina, Song of the Islands, Over the Rainbow/You Made Me Love You, Till We Meet Again, Anytime, Hopelessly Devoted to You, and a box set of La Traviata, on clear red discs.

Dad had a preference for LPs, so some of these may have been records that I bought cheap to remind me of him, or that I inherited from somewhere else and kept because they were songs he played and songs he sang us to bed with.

I may keep the red ones for awhile, but the others are going.  Also going is a box of LP albums, album sets, and 78 records that were definitely his.  His name was on most of them.  Two were in the cardboard box they had been mailed to him in.  I'm glad I went through the box even though I didn't keep any of the records in the end.  There was also a photo album that he had kept in high school.  There were enough pictures of other kids to show that he had friends.  But most of the pages were filled with pictures of planes.

He was always interested in WWII planes.  Some were post cards.  Some were the size of, and had backs like, playing cards.  Some were smaller photos.  I'm going to mail them to Beloved Son, because he's shown interest in Dad's army time and his army time wouldn't have happened without this prior interest.  If BS wants to throw them out after looking at them, that's fine. 

I did my due dilligence.  I looked online, checking on the 78's.  The best advice there is that if it was a popular song, it isn't worth the bother of trying to sell.  Early jazz and pre-WWII country, western, or hillbilly might be worth something, but Bing Crosby won't be. 

Give me a sec.  There are at least four albums of 78's in the Going Away Shelves.  Some titles I'm not familiar with.  Probably not Dad's.  "That Mink On Her Back (Brought the Wolf to My Door)."  One of them is a picture disc with Cowboys and cows.  I may check on a value for that one.  It has fine scratches, but may not have skips.  Probably a lost cause, but out of nearly two boxes worth, checking on one or two won't hurt me.

So "Out Where the West Winds Blow" is number one of two to be checked.  Number two is "The Voice of . . . Barry Goldwater."  It's his acceptance speech from his nomination for president.  I had no idea that those were pressed into LP's. 

There's about a box full of LP's left, and those were probably mine.  These were the ones I was feeling guilty about, though, so those will be easy to go through.  The culls are by the front door, ready to be taken to the van.  With them are my old speakers and tape/CD player.  Getting those out of my bedroom is freeing up significant floor space.  I'm going to enjoy it.  I'll let you know if I can get big bucks for Barry. 

Oh, my.  I just took it out to see if it had been played much.  It hasn't been.  And it's an eye-catching transparent bright yellow.  A gold LP for Goldwater.  Nice. 

I Have Become Accustomed to Taking Loads to the Thrift Store

I think I posted, once before, about donating things to the thrift store and not posting it here, because I had done it enough that it had started to just feel normal instead of feeling like a little victory.  Well, I don't know how many times I've taken things there without posting them here.  I'm trying to remember - I think the last batch went three days ago, and it was a fairly big batch that had to be dealt with in stages.

Let's touch the guilt.  There's a little voice squeaking away that's implying that I didn't post about it, not because it seems normal, now, but because I've been lazy about posting.  No.  That's not appropriate.  Not for here.  The rule for this blog is that it's here to help me, not to give me one more chore to do.  If I don't feel like posting, I won't post.  That's not being lazy, that's using the blog the way I planned to use it. 

Too bad, little voice.  You lose.

But let me think for a minute about what it took to make this last donation.  Usually, a donation means I've sorted through a box or drawer or shelf and pulled out things no longer needed.  They stay in a box or on a shelf near the front door until there are enough things to take to the van.  If there's enough right after the sort, they're supposed to go to the van the next time I go out the door.

I allow things to stay in the van for up to a week before I allow myself to feel guilty about it.  It saves gas if I drop off a donation while I'm driving nearby on another errand, so I tell myself I'm doing that.  Occasionally I'll make a single run right away, but that's only if I feel like giving myself a little boost of accomplishment.

This load was in the van for two or three days. Not bad.  But before that, some of it was sitting in the back yard.  Why was that?  Because two or three weekends ago, I sorted through all of the things in the room off of the garage.  The little voice isn't even trying to make me feel guilty about not having posted about that.  Do you know why?  Because I completely sorted the room off the garage, which was an annoying mess, and however I may have dropped the ball afterwards, it was a big thing and doing a big thing is not lazy.

I know what's out there, now, and which plastic bins have which things in them.  Most of it isn't mine, but I still sorted it.  I convinced someone else to part with three or four boxes worth of stuff.  That's a major thing for me.  I have a real reluctance to poke at other people.

Half of it was tossed and half of it was set aside for donation.  There were also nearly a dozen cardboard boxes liberated, more than the recycling bin could hold.  Next week should see the last of them gone.  And some odd-shaped plastic bins were released to donation. 

There wasn't much of my stuff in there, but I decided to donate two old sewing machines that belonged to relatives, and probably tossed a few things.  It's been long enough that the details are fading.  The sewing machines were a big thing to let go of.  There's at least one relative who would be unhappy to think that they were no longer "in the family". 

So there was a pile of cardboard boxes and plastic donatables in the back yard for a couple of weeks.  I can remember when things were put into the back yard temporarily and then stayed there for months.  I'm a bit pleased that this particular set started to gall me by the next weekend and that I actually got them gone within two or three weeks because of that.

Another bright spot is that when it was obvious that I wasn't loading up whenever I noticed the stack and felt annoyed with it because I didn't want to do all that heavy lifting, I asked for help loading.  Got it, too.  With no complaints.  I need to do that more often. 

So there was a donation load delivered to the thrift store a few days ago.  And it was the result of me asking for help.  I asked for help because I was staying on top of no letting things just sit in the back yard.  And the stuff was sitting in the back yard because I HAD TOTALLY CLEARED, SORTED, AND ORGANIZED THE ROOM OFF OF THE GARAGE!

OK.  Now I can see that part of the reason the little voice was telling me that I was lazy with posting, here, is that it knew that I needed to acknowledge, not the load to the thrift store, but the bigger accomplishment behind it.  Cool.  Not bad, little voice. 

And the trash and recycling got picked up yesterday, so if I go out back now and bin the last of the cardboard boxes, the adventure of the Great Sorting will be complete.  I probably ought to get dressed first.  Now would be good.  (waves)