At throwing shit away that family members have never gotten around to throwing away.
Somewhere I've got Civil War letters, and worthless deeds to property, and stock certificates from defunct mining companies. There used to be McKinley campaign buttons in that collection, and stereoscope images of San Francisco from around the earthquake more or less, but they seem to have disappeared. Last I looked there was still a receipt for goods purchased for an overland trek in 1837.
But none of it's worth much more than the effort to lift it. The CW letters, of course, but I selfishly want to transcribe them myself and will surely do so within another couple decades.
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My mother threw out my comic books. Including the original Spider-Man series. I mean the ORIGINAL original, with the first Dr. Octopus (Issue #3)... I could be set for life. And this was not even stuff that was in the way.
I throw things out routinely, though, on the theory that no one gets that lucky twice.
I have to throw stuff out -- I don't have the luxury of space or extra money to rent a storage unit. Pretty soon I'll need to dump the rest of my father's stuff, too. No options there either. But it's freeing in a way, and I know where everything is!
I just had to go through closets and throw away stuff for the first time ever. I've lived in this house 5 years, which is the longest I've ever lived anywhere. Usually I just move, and the stuff you donate/toss when you do that takes care of the clutter.
I can't imagine the people who stay in the same house for 20, 30, 40 years, what kind of clutter they accumulate.
Well, for example. Letters my grandfather wrote in the 1920s on behalf of his mother's business dealings with farmers. Newspapers hailing the end of WWII --- and of WWI. Documents related to the liquidation of the family farm in the early 1940s. A deed to land near Mt Diablo, signed by a functionary on behalf of President Cleveland. Trinkets (rings, cufflinks, little cast plaques) my father accumulated in the Navy, his fraternity, his chemistry career. The cane my grandfather's soldier colleague made from the strut of a WWI biplane. My great-grandfather's drafting and art supplies. Furniture that I pulled myself up to my feet on as a child -- and with which my father did the same. High school and college diplomas going back eleven decades. Photographs of army camp life in 1918 France. I have out on my shelf a book on American history that was published in 1848. The shit just goes on and on and on.
Wow, this is a major trove. Time must definitely be taken to properly investigate. However, I think you are slow because of all that dope you smoked in 2nd Grade down at the far end of The Grove.
"The CW letters, of course, but I selfishly want to transcribe them myself and will surely do so within another couple decades."
I come from a long-lived Quaker farm family that never threw anything away. My great-grandfather particularly never did, so I have a butter box filled with his hand-written journals. One a these days. One a these days I'll get the Dragon Naturally Speaking running and do that.
One a these days.
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