The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Lately I’ve been around folks similar in geologic age as myself who, after reviewing their litanies of medical maladies, assorted operations and multiple ailments, inevitably land on the subject of cleaning out their closets and drawers, sheds and outbuildings so the kids won’t get stuck with the hellish project disposing of their decades of accumulation. The assumption in every case is that their offspring would no more want that accretion of antique junk than they’d hop e their local thrift store would one day be theirs, lock stock and broken barrel.

With my brother I moved our folks’ treasured possessions three or four times the last years of their life. The first move we told them, after they’d become alarmed at our loads to the dump and Goodwill, if they wanted to downsize themselves, okay, but we’d be returning down to Georgia with the largest U-Haul truck we could rent and what they wanted to keep — definitely not everything — would have to fit. All right, they said. When we returned of course nothing had been weeded out or thrown away. What are you gonna do, spank em and send em to bed without supper? We managed to find a second U-Haul truck and filled both, then drove them 1500 miles to their new house that we filled with cheap furniture, rusty tools, broken appliances and a lifetime of collected crap.

The next few moves into the assisted living complex, we did the downsizing. As much as they would allow … or at least never witnessed. Whether it’s a prolonged attachment or just too much work to get rid of stuff, I couldn’t say. Our own junkpile, seldom downsized, would be a curse to our kids when we leave these mortal coils, goofy art, rotting kayaks, dead lawnmowers, useless tools — a veritable EPA superfund site. Fortunately we don’t have kids. I suspect we’ll just endow the property, the houses, the 20 plus sheds and all our worldly possessions to jumpstart the South End Historical Society. No need to call the movers or the thrift stores. Just need volunteers to be docents once the visiting hours are established.

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