by Janis Patterson
Our family has always been keepers. Not hoarders, but
keepers. Things that are parts of our family history. Things that might be
useful someday. Or simply, things that are simply too good to get rid of.
That’s how we ended up with a garage full of stuff. And when I say full, I mean
full! This oversized two car garage was packed so tightly we couldn’t have
fitted an anorexic mouse in there.
Over the years periodically we’d decide to do something
about it. We had plans to make it half into an organized storage facility with
shelves and steel pallets and half into a workshop (I call it a ‘Boom Room’)
for The Husband. We’d make a concentrated but short-lived attempt to get it
cleaned out. The local animal-benefit charity shop loved us, because with every
attempt they got a nice haul of stuff. But then other things – trips, rocket
meets, gun shows, writer’s meetings, that sort of thing – got in the way and
the garage would once again slip into oblivion on our radar.
Then not too long ago we realized how long we had been
talking about doing the garage and, in a moment of bravado, booked the
contractor to arrive on a certain date. Then we looked at the garage and ALL
THAT STUFF! Gulp.
Well, there was no way we could sort through all those boxes
and bags and suitcases in time to have the garage cleared before the contractor
and his crew showed up, so we did the next best thing. We rented a storage room
– a rather large storage room – on the edge of town and have been frantically
moving things there willy-nilly for the last ten days. We? The Husband goes to
his job Monday through Friday and can only work on the weekend, leaving guess
who to haul stuff around during the week. Of course, I have a job too – I
write, you know – but in the light of the present emergency my computer is
getting a nice rest. I’m not. Sometimes life just gets in the way.
My mother did not raise me to be a stevedore, but necessity
drives, so during the week I load up my SUV (which seems to be rather ashamed
to be carrying such a shabby cargo), drive to the storage unit, unload, return
and repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
Did I tell you I’ve discovered one of the great secrets of
the universe? Boxes breed. They really do. After a day of moving I swear there
are more boxes in the garage than there were when I started. Sigh.
It doesn’t help that we are dealing with four households –
mine, The Husband’s, my late parents’ and what my mother had from her mother’s
house. You can name almost anything and we have at least three of them. To
complicate matters, my late mother was the family historian who kept all kinds
of family memorabilia from photographs to a pump head to plow harrows to an
ancient scythe (I’m fixed for costume parties from now on!) to an 1830 blanket
box which strongly resembles a recently dug up coffin. We have furniture that
came to Texas
in a covered wagon in the 1840s and a settee and two chairs that date from my
great-uncle’s first term as a State Legislator back in the twenties. I think we
are the only house on the block to have our own anvil.
Not all was lost during this last weekend, though. The
Husband and I took an entire pick-up load of stuff to the charity shop. And
there is method in our madness in carrying stuff away to storage. That way we
ensure that only things we wish to keep will come back to the house… and the
charity shop is conveniently located between home and the storage facility!
I may not be getting much writing done, but it is a good
feeling to know that our dreams of the garage are actually coming true and that
our discards are benefiting the scores of homeless animals who so desperately
need help. It’s also sad in a way, because I am getting rid of things I would
rather not, but have no need of nor space for. There are some things I’m
keeping, though, like the anvil. It might be useful someday.
