“Please tell me where to donate my ornamental pig collection”
And other adventures in downsizing.
All right. I don’t have, never have had, and never would have an ornamental pig collection. But someone on a nearby neighborhood listserv did, and their plea (which sadly drew no response) is a cautionary tale for all of us.
Bill and I learned this the hard way over the past year. We’re about to sell the house where we’ve lived for three decades. Our realtors informed us that before they could bring in a crew to make all the repairs and upgrades that we never made, the house would need to be empty.
As in, empty. Tragically, all the following – and much, much more – would need to go:
The world’s most ugly-ass couch, more politely known as the Aunt Mildred couch after the great-aunt who owned it. She’s not to blame: my dear father cleaned out her apartment after she died and decided to ship this floral-upholstered monstrosity to me.
A large pile of wood scraps that the previous owners left in the basement when they sold us the house in 1992. As clueless first-time home buyers, we didn’t know we could ask the sellers to remove their junk.
Homemade bookshelves on every floor of the house. Bill built these over the years from raw lumber and plastic corner braces. He constructed them in place, which meant that most couldn’t fit through the doors or down the stairwell. They would have to be dismantled, board by board, before they could be removed.
Three saggy mattresses, two squeaky bed frames, and a collection of ancient furniture, much of it sourced from the sidewalk.
Three puffy, heavy, slightly funky-smelling mummy bags that my family used for camping in the 1950s.
A tattered book of Christmas carols also dating to the 1950s, when my mother would play carols on the piano and we would sing.
A complete set of Wee Sing kiddie songs on tape cassettes, plus other obsolete technologies.
A needlepoint sampler created by an ancestor born in Maine in 1817 (she stitched her birthdate into the fabric). I have no idea how this ended up in our basement, but it had a genealogy taped to the back in my mother’s handwriting.
A 1980s vinyl recording from the Dominican Republic, with members of the Movimiento Campesino Independiente singing revolutionary songs.
A robot-shaped mug with a top.
A gender changer. DeSantis alert! But no, this turns out to be electrical hardware.
An unopened bottle of Russian kvas, a mildly alcoholic, sour-tasting beverage, gifted to me by an ESL student from Russia.
My old caving helmet, circa 1980, with a carbide lamp attachment.
And on and on.
Some items could be donated. The Maine Historical Society took the needlepoint sampler. I mailed the record to the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute in New York with a note saying “please don’t send this back to me.” They added it to their historical sound recordings collection and sent thanks. We donated tools and hardware to a nonprofit recycle warehouse and rehomed some furniture with local families via a neighborhood nonprofit. But the notion that you can simply phone up Goodwill or the Salvation Army and they’ll send a truck to pick up all your stuff turns out to be a myth. Charities are picky about the furniture they accept, they want it to be in excellent condition, and they expect you to transport it yourself (in our Corolla?) or hire movers to bring it to them.
Another myth is that you can sell things online and make money. That may be true if you own antiques, fine furniture, artwork, or jewelry. If you have items of real value you might need an appraiser. Our home décor style could best be described as “aging graduate student,” and aside from a very few pieces, nothing was worth anything.
So we turned to our neighborhood Buy Nothing group on Facebook. I posted freebies throughout 2022: the robot mug, the Christmas carols, the sleeping bags and many other items all found takers. It scarcely made a dent. Finally, after we had removed everything we wanted to keep, we advertised a “big giveaway – everything free!” and threw open the doors. Neighbors showed up to claim our castoff treasures. And still, it wasn’t enough. In the end, we had to pay a junk hauler $800 to take the rest away.
So here’s the cautionary tale: if you’re in your third age, you might want to start making a downsizing plan now. Don’t leave it to the last moment like we did. My fellow boomers, nobody wants our stuff. And guess who wants it least of all: our adult kids. That they are eager to receive our hand-me-downs is yet another myth. (I can just hear the owner of the ornamental pig collection pleading her case and getting “Great, Mom, yeah, whatever. I’ll pick it up … sometime.”)
One reason for starting to plan early is that some things do have value – monetary in some cases, but more often sentimental or historical (I’m including family history here as well as broader social history). It takes time and research to figure out what to do with these items. Expecting our descendants to store them in their closets and attics, generation after generation, isn’t realistic. Items of historical interest can go to archives, where they’ll be preserved and made available to those who come after us. Bill is in the process of donating his papers from decades of activist and policy work on Africa to two university archives. My dad just donated several scrapbooks of photographs from his World War II service to his college archives – he was a student when he enlisted – and they were very glad to have them.
In the end we dealt with everything, but it was time-consuming and exhausting. This whole process has forced me to take a clear-eyed look at what material goods I need and want. Having offloaded what was unnecessary, I feel lighter and, in a way, free. I think this deserves a celebratory glass of kvas.
Wait, does anyone have an opener? We had one, but I think I gave it away …
I must admit that since I am a compulsive downsizer (and I rarely buy anything) I don´t have that much left. But I have to comment that it totally depends on your neighborhood and your family. Here you can put ANYTHING outside your gate and someone will pick it up. I first try to give it to people that I know, but if I have no takers, outside works great with a sign that says ¨se regala¨ As to the sentimental part? My adult kids won´t let me give anything away. Maya even took the horrible table that I made in woodshop (my friend and I were the first females to take woodshop) And I am still using the pots and pans that my mother gave me (Not for sentimental reasons. It is just that they still work and I don´t need to replace them.) I have Bill´s kimona that Dad brought him to wear from Japan. It is ironed and displayed on my bedroom wall. Also, I mounted a lace armchair cover that Juan´s mother made on a batik and have it in my dining room, etc Luca has the Minter piano, Maya the table that my grandmother had made when she got married. (It was the only thing that I asked Susan for, but soon realized that I would never bring it down here) Now Juan? He still has books to sort, but I figure everyone has to do their own books. CLUE When I first starting sorting his boxes, I found papers from HIGH SCHOOL , not to mention university. Aren´t you glad you don´t have to sort all those books and papers of Bill´s ?Momumental task, and only he can do it since it has archival value.
I also still have my Change IS Obama poster on my refrigerator I would gladly put a new one, if we ever have a president I admire