Who Knew We Had This Much STUFF?

In March of 2021, Lynda and I signed a deal to build a new home. You would think nearly seventeen months would be enough time to go through everything Pat and I had accumulated in our thirty eight years together. Not even close.

Going through dresser drawers and nightstands, I have found pictures from our honeymoon, press passes from Bears games, baseball cards, radio shows on cassettes, as well as jewelry, coins from other countries, paperback books I needed to have and much more. 

Just a suggestion…even if you are not moving now, PURGE!

It would have been so easy if say every five years, we would have gone through our drawers and closets and gotten rid of the things that we had used, or not, over the previous years…but no. We just kept accumulating, hoarding, saving things that we could have and should have, just as easily thrown away.

Paper back books, hard covers, magazines. Why do we read them and then save them? How often do you EVER go back and read a book a second time? Why was it necessary to put all seven Harry Potter books together in the bookcase? How many times was I going to read about Pete Rose, the ‘85 Bears, the Blackhawks Stanley Cup wins, or the Cubs and White Sox in Sports Illustrated?

As a child of the seventies, I not only bought a lot of music, on 8-tracks, cassettes, albums and cds, but what I didn’t buy, I borrowed and recorded my own copies on cassette. Now, I have hundreds of albums I recorded on hundreds of cassettes, without a cassette deck or Walkman that works. Since I worked in radio, I also have many hours of shows, that maybe someday, I might listen to one or two of them.

If audio wasn’t bad enough, how about all the soccer games and baseball playoff games I recorded on VHS? The 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2016 World Cups, along with 2000, 2004 and 2008 Euro Championships. That doesn’t take into account television shows like Dexter, The Sopranos, The Big Bang Theory, Friday Night Lights, all shows I can now watch on streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu and more. Last count, I have over 300 VHS tapes. 

Just finished packing up all of the DVDs I have accumulated also. 

What the heck do I need any of this stuff for and why did I keep it all this time? I am finding VHS tapes in shoe boxes and elsewhere, neatly organized and well taken care of. If only I would have been that much into something really worthwhile, like the stock market or developing some new fad that would sweep the world. I did think earmuffs with headphones in them would be a great idea, but remember missing that invention, and now everyone has ear buds.

I haven’t even mentioned clothes. Those favorite t-shirts that you just could’ve get rid of. That XL that you thought you could fit into if you just dropped a few pounds. I still have a shirt that I wore when the White Sox brought the World Series trophy into The Score after winning in 2005!

I swear, I am going to try to get better after this move. No more meaningless books and magazines after I read them. I’ll get rid of shirts, pants and shorts when they begin to show a little wear. I’ll just keep some of the cassettes to remember what I sounded like, (Even though I have saved many shows on digital files).

Purging and packing have been a lot. Next up, unpacking, hopefully soon!