When I returned from overseas and checked aboard the USS
Hunley for the remaining two years of my Navy enlistment, I carried my all in one sea
bag.
When I moved to Little Rock to begin my first professional
job, I carried everything I owned, save one sack of books, in a 1967 Chevrolet
sedan.
You know those childhood dreams about a genie granting you
three wishes? My first would be to live in that condition again.
How do we accumulate so much stuff? I don’t know. We buy
things. People give us things. We acquire things through the death of others.
Other family members and friends pawn things off on us. Some items simply
appear overnight by magic, left by some invisible force seeking to add gravity
to our lives. We even find things others have lost or discarded.
I have this person in my life, of whom I think highly—very
highly—who can spot a wrench or other tool on the shoulder of the road 100
feet away at 50 miles per hour. The person in question acquired the skill from
her father, who practiced it for over 50 years. We now have three tubs filled
with such random items. A few even work.
In family fairness, I’ve been known to take a book from our
condo “library” and not return it. Everyone knows, though, that books and
guitars don’t count. And our best slip-joint pliers I found in a street gutter while out fat-walking. But back to useless acquisitions.
We once lived on a wonderful block that had an alley. That
alley was the social spine of our neighborhood as well as the trash collection route.
People living there were known, on occasion, to peak at the “throw-aways” of
others and sneak away items of some undetermined but potentially useful value.
I’m not admitting to anything, but we still have an item or two obtained that
way.
Flea markets and yard sales? Please don’t mention them.
Every time I move some mysterious object from one place to another, I hear the
words of dear friend and former neighbor Nick Nicholson, “Why the wood alone is
worth the price.”
Doubtless.
Further, there is no cleansing, as there should be. The main
obstacle? It’s what I call the “20-second rule” which posits that if one stares
at an object for 20 seconds, even one just found 30-years since it was last
seen, and whose original purpose is unfathomable, she or he will think of
something for which it might be useful, and squirrel it away for another 30
years.
No, we never eliminate, we simply change storage spots. With
the energy I’ve spent moving unused, sometimes unusable, items from one location
to another, I could have, well hell, I could have helped renovate an historic home,
learned to play the banjo, or written a novel.
Well, I’ve done those things, but I could certainly could
have done them better if I weren’t caring for junk.
The problem is, any time I’ve thrown both caution and endearment
to the wind and disposed of a completely useless object, I’ve needed it within
a week or so.
Meanwhile the pile grows. We still have a path through the
house, but it grows more narrow with each passing year. Eventually, we could
become housebound.
Know what? The Russians don’t need to subvert our elections
or out-bomb us. They could just hire drug-runners to change products, and
instead of dope, they could smuggle in useless junk and set up fake yard sales.
The country would be paralyzed in a few years.
Oh, wait a minute …
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| Would a clean desk improve the quality of writing? I dunno. |
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