Duty and Nostalgia

The time is fast approaching, if all goes as planned, where my mother's house, the house I grew up in, will finally be sold. I'm a practical sort at heart, so I made peace with this eventuality when my mother moved out of the house something over a year ago... but now, it falls to her children in Spokane to finally sift through 40+ years of attic and basement clutter, playing the game of "keep, donate, or trash" for weekends on end. It's unkind to say, but there has been a lot of "what the hell was she thinking, holding on to this?" My favorite of that category so far has to be the state driver's license exam book from the '60s, with the multiple copies of "Catcher in the Rye" a close second.

Amongst the other odds and ends, I came across a box with my name on it. Apparently, she tossed the odds and ends that I left behind when I entered the Navy into it. Let's just say that, for the most part, it was stuff that, if I remembered it, I hadn't felt the loss of it... old birthday cards, get-well cards from the time I got run over by a car, that sort of thing. I did scavenge an old picture or two, plus a couple of names I'd forgotten that I might try my Google-fu on, just for kicks. I've also set aside some old table-top gaming gear temporarily... odds are that most of it will go the way of the rest of the detritus, but I'll probably thumb through one last time first, just to be certain.

So, I got a little whiff of nostalgia to compensate for the nasty, grimy work I'm fated to endure. It's something, I guess, but let me make this plea to all you people accumulating stuff in your attics, basements, or, heavens fore-fend, in a storage unit somewhere... if you're holding on to it because you honestly think it will be useful to you at some point down the road, or it has known sentimental value (pictures, for example), that's all fine and well. However, don't just hold on to stuff because it might come in handy, or for lack of a better idea of what to do with it... the trash can exists for a reason, and those who clean up after you will be ever so grateful, when the time comes.