The upheaval is underway full-tilt! The little room that once held a cot, chest of drawers, bookcase, computer snd printer, racks and shelves of clothes, miscellaneous window and wall appurtenances–gone, gutted, the lathes and plaster carted away; there never was any insulation. GUTTED! Everything worth keeping is somewhere else.
Next comes the big room, the living room, where I essentially lived when not in thr kitchen. Who wants all the stuff that has to be gone forever? Books galore, hundreds of cassettes, CD’S now going into boxes. Take down the pictures, put the TV somewhere else. Away with them! It’s Good Friday! Strip it!
We live in an opulent throw-away society, a time of “conspicuous consumption,” a time when a kid needs new sneakers as soon as the tops get dirty. I come from a time when you wore your sneakers until they had no soles, a time when we saved buttons and zippers and shoelaces. A time when Aunt Sue’s Sunday dress would eventually become a frock for little Nellie, then part of a quilt or a braided rug, and finally a pot holder or just plain rag. Actually I just threw out a lovely bag of shoelaces, all sizes, many colors, some not even opened yet. Such bounty–but who would appreciate a lovely collection of shoelaces other than some child in a garbage dump in Haiti? And getting them there would be such a chore. Out with it all!
Before the upheaval I had a bookcase in my bedroom on one whole wall from floor to ceiling, as well as bookshelves or bookcases in at least five other locations. It seems such a crime to throw out all that good reading! True, some are yellowed with age, and some only paperbacks that cost 35 cents in their day. Erma Bombeck, Rachel Carson, Eric Fromm. It’s going to be such a task to sort through them to make space for better(?), newer tomes which have not even been read yet, but had no shelf space.
AWAY! Till next time.