TheBanyanTree: Stuff, was "Living Space"

[NancyIee at aol.com]

I, too, come from a long line of hoarders. I agree that it partly comes from 
some growing up during the Depression, and saving everything. Right down to 
rubberbands, bread ties, cigar boxes (to hold other the rubberbands and bread 
ties, of course)

I have books: Robert Payson Terhune collie stories, volumes of them, and 
horse novels, and Classics that came beautifully illustrated and boxed for 
display, and hardly ever read.I have paperbacks that I have read and liked. "I'll 
keep it and read it again," I always say.  I also have my mother's favorite 
books, far too many to fit into one large bookcase. They are now stuffed, 
double-rows, into my bookcase, and in cartons in front of the bookcase. I went through 
them recently, and took two cartons to the local used bookstore. I STILL have 
too many blocking passage through the room and creating a traffic jam 
whereever I try to keep them.

I am a keeper of gifts never used, but I loved the giver enough to hang onto 
the useless gift. I cannot bear to throw away my mother's every day dishes.  I 
have my father's file kept on our old house, the one they bought for $2,500 
right after they were married, more than half a century ago. I have the stuffed 
Koala Bear sent to my mother from her brother when he was a bomber pilot and 
stationed in New Zealand during WWII (and was lost at sea shortly after) I 
have a box of the neighborhood "newspaper" I wrote and distributed through out 
our block when I was . .ten. I have my brother's baby footprint, as was given by 
the hospital in that era. I have the hub-cap cover from my first race car, 
back when I was "the lady in red," in a bright red race car. The car was totaled 
in a race accident, but I kept the hub cap cover. I have a pink plaster hippo 
made by my beloved first daughter in a school art class. I have a 
hand-crocheted afghan my grandmother made for a bed at the Lake Place. I have the doll 
house my father made for me for my seventh birthday, complete with all the tiny 
furniture and small family.

I need a warehouse for all the momentos of my life.

When I die, I take pity on those who must go through my "stuff".


NancyLee