Collectible or not?

Facing reality, I’ve been thinking – a dangerous thing – about what to do with all the “stuff” we’ve accumulated over the many years we’ve been accumulating stuff.

We all know our children do not want any of our things, let alone the things we cherished that were handed down from our own parents and grandparents. What happened to their sense of continuity? History? Has it all become nothing more than clutter to them?

We are not hoarders in that sense of the word. But then I suspect someone who is an actual hoarder like we see on television doesn’t think of herself as a hoarder either. I guess it’s in the eye of the beholder. By my definition, I think if we can still see the floor and things don’t fall out of closets and cupboards when we open the door, then we lean more toward being tidy.

As we are in the midst of a little remodeling, I find myself thinking more and more about what we really need to surround ourselves with. I find, much to my dismay, that my vision is getting, as they say, wonky, and I’ve resorted to reading large-print books. To that end, I have begun phasing out shelves of books I’ve accumulated and meant to read someday.

My granddaughter is a whiz at selling things over the internet, and I am thinking of hiring her to see what she can get for the variety of decades-old things in my basement. I swore off garage sales years ago, so I think my only alternatives are trying online sales or just packing it all up, donating it, taking the tax deduction and calling it a day. Such a dilemma.

Talking with friends recently, the issue of getting rid of things that once meant so much to us came up. One thing led to another, and we compared methods of packaging valuables for shipment. We are conscious of the environment and considered the possibility of, for instance, packing the Hummels surrounded by Beanie Babies instead of Styrofoam peanuts or plastic bubble wrap, thereby killing two birds with one stone. Brilliant, right?

Except, I never got caught up in the Beanie Baby craze. Nor the Hummels, for that matter. But, as luck would have it, my mother did get caught up – and sadly could not take them with her, so I have them. Wrapped in bubble wrap, by the way, since I didn’t have any Beanie Babies. When she died, I gave one to each of her granddaughters and great-granddaughters as a keepsake. That made a small dent.

Today I see both collecting dust on the shelves of antique shops and thrift stores. There I also see the Fisher-Price Play Family house and Holiday Inn leftover from my children. Heck, my grandchildren outgrew those old toys almost 20 years ago. Why am I hanging on to this stuff?

I had a cousin who had a heart of gold. He also had a penchant for those claw games that kids are attracted to. He, by the way, was grown, with grown kids of his own, but had a talent for bringing home quite an assortment of those little stuffed animals. Sadly, when he died, his wife tried taking his collection to the nearby children’s hospital, thinking she was doing a good thing. As he was a smoker, she was turned down. I’m not sure just what she did with them after that. I assume she just dumped them on her way home.

The very thought of disposing of our stuff makes me think of that bottle of wine chilling in the fridge. That I could make short work of. Maybe that’s where I should start.

Anybody want my cork collection?