[AT] Melting it all down.(copper is the new gold), now: Age-related hoarding

[Indiana Robinson]

Larry Goss wrote:
> You just reminded me of a "problem" I'm having to deal with, with my older brother.  He's currently recovering from heart surgury and he sent me out to the home place to do some stuff when I visited with him last week.  In the basement, I found a cache of empty Quaker Oats cereal boxes.  101 of them!  I asked him what sort of project he had planned for them, and he said, "Nothing."  He's just keeping them to see if the years and years of eating Quaker Oats had any effect on his heart.  I asked him why he didn't keep a tally on a sheet of paper.  He said it was easier to count the boxes!
> 
> I got to thinking that in some ways all of us are doing similar things with the collections of tractor-related stuff that we all have.  There actually is a name for it -- Age-Related Hoarding.  If you Google that, then once you get by all the articles about birds, squirrels, and dogs, you will come to the stuff about people.  It's a particular version of Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder, and apparently a lot of us suffer from it.
> 
> When I asked my brother why he was collecting all the weird non-collectible items he has around the house, he tried to turn the tables on me by asking when I was going to get rid of MY collections.  I told him I've already started.  I sold all my metal toy cars and trucks last Christmas, and I sold four tractors a couple months ago.
> 
> When things get out of hand, it makes the headlines.  We've all seen the stories about elderly women with hundreds of cats or dogs living in very poor conditions.  There were incidents of a large number of horses being kept by a man who wasn't feeding them and people accumulating newspapers in stacks so high and numerous that you can't get through the house, etc.  My point is: we all have to watch ourselves on uncontrolled collections.
> 
> It's been three days since I bought my most recent tractor.  :-)
> 
> Larry

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	In my case it was a double dose of genetics...   :-)   Actually my 
paternal grandparents had little except land but my father was a 
"collector" from childhood. He may have been that way because they 
didn't have much in the way of "things" and things became important. We 
have always been an extra frugal bunch, Well, OK, tight.   :-)
	My maternal grandmother became a class A pack-rat. After she passed I 
helped my mother clear out her house. On one trip we discovered that the 
house had been broken into and it took us about 20 minutes to decide 
that it had not been ransacked.   :-)   "All" of the stuff from her 
house was brought here. Most of it is still here. So is a lot of stuff 
from my paternal grandmothers house, stuff from the homes of two of my 
father's sisters who left no heirs and a pickup load of stuff from the 
estate auction of the mother of my mother's life long best friend. There 
is also stuff from estate auctions of several prominent ladies around 
the community that my mother knew. It is somehow sort of a way to pay 
them respect to go bid on their stuff.   :-)    One of those old school 
things we sometimes carry with us I guess. I thought about that recently 
as I was bidding on some "stuff" at the auction of some now gone old 
friends, items that I didn't need at all.   :-)
	Growing up in that environment I couldn't help but "collect".   :-)
My father in later years took to drinking Gator-aid. He found that he 
could use one of the empty glass jars to take extra water to the field 
with him and that he could add ice cubes to it through the neck of them 
OK. Weeell, he started saving some "just in case". He also liked to save 
a few tin cans back to put "stuff" in. Actually they can be quite handy 
and I keep "a few" in a box up in one loft. When he was no longer able 
to be outside I started clearing some things out.There were more 
gator-aid jars and tin cans than I could possibly haul in 4 loads in my 
F-150's 8' bed...
	My mother saved "everything" in later years, even all of her junk mail. 
This is a 5,000 square foot house and most of it was down to narrow 
paths. We have put actual tons of stuff in the trash pickup, taken a lot 
of stuff to the Salvation Army and Goodwill. I'm sure some things of 
some value have gone the wrong direction at times but we just "had" to 
dig ourselves out of this stuff. The value of "stuff" had to be balanced 
against the value of sanity.   :-)
	Then there was all of the stuff we already owned after 45 years of 
marriage...
	The main floor of the house is now in pretty good shape but a upper 
room and a 36' long attic are still full and about 1/2 of a large 
basement room is not all gone yet. A lot of stuff went to our old house 
and it is still stacked to the gills. It has "stuff" stored in it but 
the "trash" has been sorted out. For a time we had a booth in a local 
indoor flea market in an old Wal-mart building but things were getting 
out of hand so we stopped for a while. Now that things are going better 
we have sat back up in a double sized booth. We both love yard/garage 
sale going and the booth allows us to support our hobby. Every few days 
another box of "stuff" from here finds its way there as well. It is 
going away kind of slowly but it is going away and it is no longer 
driving us nuts.
	I do have one scrappy thing I save. The larger yellow Nestles Quick 
containers... They are all the same size, have a snap on lids and a 
whole row of them will sit on a shelf well with easy to read labels. 
Even then I just have a couple of boxes of them up in one loft. I use 
them in the farm shop and the wood shop. Sometimes I don't label them 
but instead take one of the items out and "Shoe-Goo" it to the area 
where the label would be. Unlike many such containers they seem 
unaffected by age or sun.
	My renter in the next county wants to put a small dry-goods store in 
the building next to his house. That building is also half full of 
"stuff" and this is giving us an ideal opportunity to clear most of that 
out. I already gave him some scrap steel stuff that was down in the 
woods there and a couple of washer dryer sets and refrigerators that 
were in that building (left behind in the house by previous renters) to 
do with what he wanted. I suppose he just scrapped them, that often pays 
better than selling such items now. Much of his inventory in the store 
will be catered toward the Amish there.
	I have been getting rid of some old power tools, some into scrap. They 
are generally too heavy to ship and most are of questionable $$ value. I 
did buy a nice older (very heavy) Craftsman bench model drill press 
(less motor) today for $20 and I dropped that off at my son's garage.
	I am also selling some implements I no longer need (and some I never 
needed)   :-)
	Among other things I am trying to decide whether or not to sell the 4 
row cultivators to fit Farmall M's etc. I can't haul a tractor with them 
mounted and they are too wide to be running the roads with to drive to a 
show. I spent a lot of time with them but didn't use them at all in 
later years...
	Life is slowly getting lighter.   :-)


-- 


"farmer"


I wouldn't mind being absent minded so bad if forgetfulness
could just be a little more selective. Just last week I
was saying so to "whats-her-name..."



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Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
robinson at svs.net