George Carlin talked about Stuff, those treasures one accumulates throughout life that give us comfort as we use them and makes our lives more enjoyable. We all have “stuff,” some more than others but all important in our little tiny niche in this world.

As we get older we find that much of the stuff we have accumulated doesn’t seem to have as much use or enjoyment as it once did. Here’s a couple examples that I see at the Fourscores. We don’t travel much any more, in fact, my traveling days are over and Mrs F seldom travels now, a couple trips a year to visit friends and relatives is about all. She is now getting ready to visit some friends in Arizona and will take a suitcase. We have about five or six and I mentioned recently that maybe someone else needs a few and we could use the extra closet space, in case we get more stuff. Anyway, a wall of resistance was thrown up that would have made East Germany proud.

I asked her if she was going to take a camera but she wasn’t sure if she would take the 35 mm Minolta (with a half roll of film in it) that she couldn’t live without a few years ago or maybe the digital like everyone else was using when she was traveling on tours. Or the wide angle one or the big one with the telephoto lens that she never figured out how to use but highly recommended by a photographer friend. Heck, I’d have even loaned her my not expensive digital. She still has the little 126 from when we got married. She decided not to take a camera because who wants to look at pictures of old people anyway?

Like most other people we have lots of pictures, 1000s, taken over the years. Every year I took lots of pictures of Canadian fishing trips, annual gardens, snow in the trees, deer hunting and just scenery. I recently decided that I’d review them, sort out those with a special meaning, such as Christmas with the grand kids, birthday parties and other special family events. Did you know that every walleye, regardless of lake or size, looks very similar? Every deer is pretty much the same, unless it has some antlers, of which there were not many. The pictures of Canadian sunsets taken off the boat dock really don’t change much from year to year. These pictures were meaningful, mainly because of the people involved and the laughs that we shared but in retrospect have lost the significance they once had. Photos used to be meaningful and had some family history attached. Now no one else, like my kids, want them and they’ll be in the dumpster before the will is read.

From the first batch, which was a day’s worth of review, I ended up with about 15 pictures. I’ll save them but email them to my kids and grand kids, they can decide what to do with them. I still have 1000s more to go. I have a 100 or so framed photos, I have offered them to family members, since I have them on the computer. My son took a half dozen but others said they’d take a look later.

Mrs F has quite a few family pictures from Viet Nam. Her generation of family is old and aren’t interested and the nephews/nieces don’t know or have forgotten who the people in the pictures are anyway.

Mrs F did recently sort out her wardrobe and had 10 grocery bags of out of style or outgrown clothes. We gave them to friends that could use them or would take them to a charity. I need to do the same but my grand son-in-law is about my size and has taken some coats and sweaters to Alaska. By the time I get rid of something it generally doesn’t have much life expectancy left in it anyway.

I have given a number of guns away, after rescuing them from the boating tragedy. I’m trying to figure out what to do with a few more but my kids don’t hunt. I rarely shoot any more, unfortunately or fortunately, I’m not sure which.

A tour through the garages and I see all kinds of stuff that may not ever be used.

Stove pipe comes in three foot lengths but I only need two feet. Cut off a foot but save it, just in case. I did need a short piece last fall andsaved a trip to the hardware store. Need some chainsaw oil? Better buy two gallons while I’m at the store, even if I only needed a couple quarts. That stack of 2 X 4s, about 2-3 feet long? I occasionally use a piece to hold something up so I can work on it. I never know when I might need something like that.

That desktop computer that needs a motherboard, there’s room for it on the shelf, better save it, some smarter kid will be able to fix it one day. A pressure tank that someone gave me to use on a garden well, that’ll come in handy someday, it’s been in the same place for fifteen years, hardly even see it anymore. A nice floor jack with a leaky seal, someone could fix that, I’d bet.

Yesterday I tried to give a glass top electric range away, needs a heating element in the oven, easy repair. Mrs F wanted a new one and she is boss lady in the kitchen. That range has been sitting in the garage and has become a nice work bench if I’m on that side of the building. I’ll try one of the charity places, maybe they need a range. I don’t want to start on kitchen appliances, if it’s sold on TV we probably have it, stored downstairs. Everyone needs two woks that never get used along with a 25 year old counter top mixer that hasn’t had the cover off in 24 years.

Oh yeah, my bee partner sold his rural property and gave me his scarcely used Husqvarna chainsaw and protective coveralls. I may be able to use it this year, my Stihl has had too many trees roll over it but it still runs good though.

Getting old and always thrifty seems to make for a drop off place for other people’s slightly used things. The problem is that there are few young people around that can use a small tiller and old guys already have those things or don’t want them anyway. I remember the years when I carried a duffel bag and that was all I needed in life.

I know why we call it settling down. We accumulate so much stuff that we can’t part with and don’t want to move again.