The Effect of Small Losses

[KeithD]

I once bought a house that was an estate sale. (That's back when I still had money for such things!) The deceased owner was a World War II vet who passed suddenly. When I first saw the house, everything he owned was still in place, including his clothes in the closets. His car was still in the garage.

His son took a few items. After that, a full-size dump truck was parked in the driveway to haul away everything else that was thrown out. The man's memories were his own; no one else cared.

When we moved into our current house, a house with a backyard backing onto our side yard was occupied by a university classics professor whose wife had been a French literature professor (we live on an enclaved residential street inside the grounds of a major university) before she nosed too far out into traffic on a street near us and got wiped out by a school bus. He lasted for a few more years before he ran naked and deranged on the university grounds once too often at night and was put away. Shortly after we moved in, he invited me in his house and down to the basement, which was one large room lined with bookshelves housing his and his wife's collections of books in their genres. Not long after he was hauled away and his children decided to sell the house, I looked over there to see an industrial-sized dumpster being fed the couple's decades of classic books collections. Probably accumulatively worth far more than the house they were being pulled out of.

I certainly hope to go before we have to downsize from our house, which my mother once called an Oriental junk store, and which contains the collections of three generations of family that had lived all over the world and collected widely. Our children already are in bigger houses than we have that are completely outfitted with their tastes in collections.

 

[_Lynn_]

After that, a full-size dump truck was parked in the driveway to haul away everything else that was thrown out. The man's memories were his own; no one else cared.

That's what will happen when I'm gone. I have the generations of pictures and things no one else wanted when my parents passed away. My kids don't want them. They don't want anything I've saved or accumulated. I look at them but it makes me sad to know they'll just end up in the trash.

 

[MillieDynamite]

The first books my father gave me when I moved in with them were the novels Dracula, Frankenstein, The Big Sleep, Red Wind, and several Hopalong Cassidy books. I still have Dracula and Red Wind, but when Jo and I started cohabiting, I left the other books in my room. Mom and Dad moved into town after that, and all of the 'stuff' was stored in the country in a storage shed. The house was broken into and ransacked, and the storage shed was also. I got everything back except those stupid Hopalong Cassidy books. Sad to say, I find myself still crying about them 8 or 9 years later. I think of them and get so sad, but I can't tell you why. I have them on my Kindle, so I only lost the hardbacks, not the stories. But I read those books and loved them because my old man is a Hopalong. He's limped since the day I met him. He actually limps on both legs, and it's gotten pretty bad lately.

But anyway that's my little thing that's fucked me up a bit.

 

[gunhilltrain]

That's what will happen when I'm gone. I have the generations of pictures and things no one else wanted when my parents passed away. My kids don't want them. They don't want anything I've saved or accumulated. I look at them but it makes me sad to know they'll just end up in the trash.

Unless you're royalty or otherwise famous, you start to fade away as anyone's living memory of you goes. When we cleaned out my mother's apartment a few years ago, we found a lot of photos of that her father had taken, probably sixty to seventy years ago. Many of them were of his co-workers in the construction business. But who were they? We couldn't name any of them, so out they went. There was a lot of stuff of that nature.

Of course, some people spend lots of money to memorialize themselves after death. At least it gives some work to stone masons. Three million individuals are in this Queens cemetery, but as the decades turn into centuries, who remembers them?

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ITJ...et/file/13236543/180526_12_29_50_5DS_6625.jpg

 

[RoperTrace]

I've seen what happens when people's houses or apartments get cleaned out after they die. Their relatives will take a few valuable items and everything else gets tossed out.

I once bought a house that was an estate sale. (That's back when I still had money for such things!) The deceased owner was a World War II vet who passed suddenly. When I first saw the house, everything he owned was still in place, including his clothes in the closets. His car was still in the garage.

His son took a few items. After that, a full-size dump truck was parked in the driveway to haul away everything else that was thrown out. The man's memories were his own; no one else cared.

Funny, when our parents passed, 25 years ago(same year), my sisters and I all kept various items that reminded us of our parents. We recently had to place my 2nd oldest sister into a memory care facility, and I reclaimed the two cast iron frying pans that belonged to parents. Her grandkids(5) took several items of hers as keepsakes, and all of her extensive photo collection. I also took several of my dad's old tools, and now remember that I also have my grandpa's old-time ratchet wrench set. My thinking is that if families were close, the survivors usually want something of personal value, but probably wouldn't gain much at a sale.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I guess in my family, I'm the one that's really interested in all those old family things, my brothers aren't at all, so the end result is my grandparents have been busy offloading all sorts of odd things onto me that they treasure and they know I like. I have an old shaving kit that my great-granddad carried right thru WW2, something that really wouldn't mean anything to anyone that didn't know it's history, some old books of my great-granddads, a diary he kept that's all in Polish, old family photos, and memoir of my great-granddad's life that my granddad sat down and wrote and went thru with him before he passed away. I like to think that as long as I have them, and I've written down everything I know about them and him, a part of my great-granddad lives on. A lot of it's so personal to us, and it means a lot more to me, say, than to my brothers, who really aren't that interested in the past. Personally, I'm a pack rat, and I collect things. Especially things like old books - I look at all my lovely old GA Henty books and some of the other old ones I have and I don't intend to just leave them lying around for someone who doesn't appreciate them to throw them in a bin. It's (hopefully LOL) a long way off, but I'm going to make sure they go to someone who appreciates them and actually wants them.

Which makes me laugh about ebooks. No-one is going to treasure that old kindle ebook, but a lovely old paper book on the other hand is something to be treasured and valued. It has a history. It's been passed on from person to person, and a lot of old things are like that. My great-granddad's shaving kit from WW2 is still perfectly functional, I've always kept it clean and a little oiled ever since I laid my sticky little paws on it, and it's history is written down and enclosed with it for posterity, so to speak. Really, its completely valueless to anyone but me, but it means a lot that I have that memento of my great-granddad, along with a few other things that have made it down through the years.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Thinking about it though, I have two things I miss - one was a collection of old Rupert Bear books I picked up in England from a used book store when I was 12 and carried all the way home (yes, I was going to used book stores from when I was about 10 years old LOL) and after I went off to uni, my mom was doing a big cleanup and she tossed them out without asking me, because they were old and dilapidated and my mom is not big on books as collectibles. So out they went! I still miss them, even tho I bought new replacements, and I miss my old illustrated copy of "Goblin Market" that I got at the same time. I can remember exactly what they looked like, right down to the font and illustrations. I really loved those books!

The other one was my old teddy bear which I had from when I was little and he came to Uni with me. One of my housemates had Krone's disease and he was in hospital a lot - and the last time he went in was really bad, so I gave him my teddy bear to keep him company in hospital, and my poor teddy was never returned! I miss my teddy bear!!!!!

 

[StillStunned]

and I miss my old illustrated copy of "Goblin Market" that I got at the same time.

By Christina Rossetti? I love that poem. She uses the sounds of the words so well to enhance their meaning.

It's amazing how often it comes up in various books. I first came across it in "The Love Talker" by Elizabeth Peters, and when I was at uni the poem was part of the curriculum. One of those moments of happy recognition.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I guess in my family, I'm the one that's really interested in all those old family things, my brothers aren't at all, so the end result is my grandparents have been busy offloading all sorts of odd things onto me that they treasure and they know I like. I have an old shaving kit that my great-granddad carried right thru WW2, something that really wouldn't mean anything to anyone that didn't know it's history, some old books of my great-granddads, a diary he kept that's all in Polish, old family photos, and memoir of my great-granddad's life that my granddad sat down and wrote and went thru with him before he passed away. I like to think that as long as I have them, and I've written down everything I know about them and him, a part of my great-granddad lives on. A lot of it's so personal to us, and it means a lot more to me, say, than to my brothers, who really aren't that interested in the past. Personally, I'm a pack rat, and I collect things. Especially things like old books - I look at all my lovely old GA Henty books and some of the other old ones I have and I don't intend to just leave them lying around for someone who doesn't appreciate them to throw them in a bin. It's (hopefully LOL) a long way off, but I'm going to make sure they go to someone who appreciates them and actually wants them.

Which makes me laugh about ebooks. No-one is going to treasure that old kindle ebook, but a lovely old paper book on the other hand is something to be treasured and valued. It has a history. It's been passed on from person to person, and a lot of old things are like that. My great-granddad's shaving kit from WW2 is still perfectly functional, I've always kept it clean and a little oiled ever since I laid my sticky little paws on it, and it's history is written down and enclosed with it for posterity, so to speak. Really, its completely valueless to anyone but me, but it means a lot that I have that memento of my great-granddad, along with a few other things that have made it down through the years.

I think the average person simply owned a lot less stuff in the 19th Century and earlier. Families were also larger and more closely knit (especially in Europe). Items like tools and cooking items were hard to get and there would likely be someone - if only a neighbor - who would want them.

How there is too much stuff in the world. With Amazon, it's so easy to buy books that might have once been borrowed from a library. Cheap furniture and other household items are produced in huge quantities, mostly in Asia, and shipped here in containers stacked on a ship. I've started to downsize the number of books I have by donating them to the Salvation Army. I'm amazed at how many I collected over the years.

What's in all of those boxes and how long do you think any of it while remain in use?

container ship

 

[StillStunned]

I've started to downsize the number of books I have by donating them to the Salvation Army. I'm amazed at how many I collected over the years.

The last time I moved house, I looked at the pile of boxes full of books, and thought, "No." I separated all the books I knew I was never going to read again, or books that I'd begun and tossed aside after a few dozen pages. I took them to a local second-hand bookshop and got about 1 euro each for them. Walked out with more than 400 euros.

After that, they all went to the local charity. Must have been a few thousand down the years, even after I switched to ebooks.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Non-professionals didn't own many cameras until after about 1920 I think. That means in the film photograph era, about the next ninety years, an numerable number of photo prints piled up in our possession.

So it's all digital now, but those still have to be stored in some medium. Even if they are in a "cloud" somewhere, someone has to look at them or they just sit on some server.

Didn't I once ask about what will happen to all the stories on Lit if Lit ceases to exist? Better keep them on a thumb drive. Then someone will eventually say, "That are we going to with grandpa's thumb drives? He seems to have stored a lot of erotic stories on them, but I don't like what he wrote."

 

[ChloeTzang]

By Christina Rossetti? I love that poem. She uses the sounds of the words so well to enhance their meaning.

It's amazing how often it comes up in various books. I first came across it in "The Love Talker" by Elizabeth Peters, and when I was at uni the poem was part of the curriculum. One of those moments of happy recognition.

Yes, Christina Rossetti. It was an ooooold used copy I picked up. I even started to write a story set around that story ages ago. The illustrations were great, but it wasn't exactly a little children's book. Way to scary.

The last time I moved house, I looked at the pile of boxes full of books, and thought, "No." I separated all the books I knew I was never going to read again, or books that I'd begun and tossed aside after a few dozen pages. I took them to a local second-hand bookshop and got about 1 euro each for them. Walked out with more than 400 euros.

After that, they all went to the local charity.

8-9,000 books last time we moved. And only a third of them were mine. LOL. The joys of marrying someone who is an even more avid collector of books - it's the one thing we don't have a budget limit on. Want a book, buy a book!!!! We come back from used book stores and book sales with boxes of books. When we both kick our toes up, our future kids will be in for an interesting time unless we offload them first, but seeing as that is decades away (touch wood), not worrying about it. But I have some lovely old books that I will make sure go somewhere where they will be loved and cared for. My oldest book is an 260 year old English dictionary, printed in 1760 something, and I have a lot of books that are 100-150 years old. A lot of them I got from garage sales where people were tossing them out with no idea what they were throwing away. Barbarians!!!!! I mean, how could anyone throw away a 120 year old GA Henty book, or a 1930's Biggles book. It's enough to make you cry!

I have actually bought old books that I already have copies of, just to give them a good home where they are cared for. My husband laughs at me, but he understands. I laugh at myself too, but I still do it.

 

[StillStunned]

Yes, Christina Rossetti. It was an ooooold used copy I picked up. I even started to write a story set around that story ages ago. The illustrations were great, but it wasn't exactly a little children's book. Way to scary.

I don't think it was ever intended for children, even with their higher tolerance for creepy stuff back then.

 

[dmallord]

I've seen what happens when people's houses or apartments get cleaned out after they die. Their relatives will take a few valuable items and everything else gets tossed out.

I once bought a house that was an estate sale. (That's back when I still had money for such things!) The deceased owner was a World War II vet who passed suddenly. When I first saw the house, everything he owned was still in place, including his clothes in the closets. His car was still in the garage.

His son took a few items. After that, a full-size dump truck was parked in the driveway to haul away everything else that was thrown out. The man's memories were his own; no one else cared.

I've also done this, rehabbing foreclosure houses. Most were junk houses, but two were amazing remains. It was spooky to walk through someone's life with everything intact: pictures on the walls, canned goods in the cupboards, and [never ever open the refrigerator, I learned that quickly.] Both homes, not houses, were as if someone walked out to get groceries and didn't come back.

That may be my faith one day, I guess. My past remains a mystery. I grew up without a family and bounced between foster places, not foster homes. There is a major disconnect in that part of my life. Over the years, I thought that didn't matter. Today, perhaps I feel that might not have been the right mindset. Some gaps in history leave a void in your memory, and you eventually feel a sense of loss at being unable to fill that memory gap.

Is it a coincidence that I'm now cleaning up piles of boxes with legal papers, sorting what gets shredded and what to keep for the Feds in case of an audit as I come inside and find this thread?

Earlier this morning, I found a small box tucked away in a corner of the garage. It holds medals, photos, and relics like a rusty 'P38' from military days. Heat, moisture, and age have battled with them. Looking at the military photos and touching them brought back some profound sadness–all are gone.

I returned inside to escape the heat and perhaps shed some memories as I parked the box again. At least, at this point, I've not tossed the contents. Is it the desire to hold on to the past that does that?

 

[dmallord]

Non-professionals didn't own many cameras until after about 1920 I think. That means in the film photograph era, about the next ninety years, an numerable number of photo prints piled up in our possession.

So it's all digital now, but those still have to be stored in some medium. Even if they are in a "cloud" somewhere, someone has to look at them or they just sit on some server.

Didn't I once ask about what will happen to all the stories on Lit if Lit ceases to exist? Better keep them on a thumb drive. Then someone will eventually say, "That are we going to with grandpa's thumb drives? He seems to have stored a lot of erotic stories on them, but I don't like what he wrote."

Right. And more likely they will not have anything compatible to plug that thumb drive into or recognize its use as they rummage through that drawer tossing things out. LOL

 

[MillieDynamite]

You can get nearly any book you want in a digital format. But I still like holding a book, turning the pages, and reading in a comfy chair with my mug of hot chocolate or double shot on the rocks of Irish Whiskey in my antique octagonal whiskey glass. Mommy's special soda, as I tell Donnie, and that only grown-ups can drink it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Right. And more likely they will not have anything compatible to plug that thumb drive into or recognize its use as they rummage through that drawer tossing things out. LOL

There is this documentary about movie film preservation. So, yes, nitrate film didn't last very long, and there is a push to get old movies on to better film stock. But the guy at the beginning who talks about preserving movies for "five-hundred years;" how can he predict what the world will be like by then? We can hope for the best, but we don't know if anybody by then will have the means to show 20th Century movies, if they even care at all.

 

[XerXesXu]

There is this documentary about movie film preservation. So, yes, nitrate film didn't last very long, and there is a push to get old movies on to better film stock. But the guy at the beginning who talks about preserving movies for "five-hundred years;" how can he predict what the world will be like by then? We can hope for the best, but we don't know if anybody by then will have the means to show 20th Century movies, if they even care at all.

I’m working out how to preserve the stories of my girls and my, and others, photographic record of them for posterity. When most of them were in their pomp, photographs and magazines, even bulletin boards, were relatively transient, and it was assumed they’d be lost to posterity within a few years or a generation.

Now, appropriately stored online, they can be preserved and shared for as long as the internet exists. For ever?

My issue is, how can this be done for free? I don’t intend to be paying for online storage on the cloud forever. I need to an open access site funded by advertising, similar to Lit, but able to store photo heavy submissions.

 

[RoperTrace]

I guess in my family, I'm the one that's really interested in all those old family things, my brothers aren't at all, so the end result is my grandparents have been busy offloading all sorts of odd things onto me that they treasure and they know I like. I have an old shaving kit that my great-granddad carried right thru WW2, something that really wouldn't mean anything to anyone that didn't know it's history, some old books of my great-granddads, a diary he kept that's all in Polish, old family photos, and memoir of my great-granddad's life that my granddad sat down and wrote and went thru with him before he passed away. I like to think that as long as I have them, and I've written down everything I know about them and him, a part of my great-granddad lives on. A lot of it's so personal to us, and it means a lot more to me, say, than to my brothers, who really aren't that interested in the past. Personally, I'm a pack rat, and I collect things. Especially things like old books - I look at all my lovely old GA Henty books and some of the other old ones I have and I don't intend to just leave them lying around for someone who doesn't appreciate them to throw them in a bin. It's (hopefully LOL) a long way off, but I'm going to make sure they go to someone who appreciates them and actually wants them.

Which makes me laugh about ebooks. No-one is going to treasure that old kindle ebook, but a lovely old paper book on the other hand is something to be treasured and valued. It has a history. It's been passed on from person to person, and a lot of old things are like that. My great-granddad's shaving kit from WW2 is still perfectly functional, I've always kept it clean and a little oiled ever since I laid my sticky little paws on it, and it's history is written down and enclosed with it for posterity, so to speak. Really, its completely valueless to anyone but me, but it means a lot that I have that memento of my great-granddad, along with a few other things that have made it down through the years.

I love the nostalgic things like your great granddad's shaving kit. I remember keeping my dad's old Barlow pocket knife that he carried the whole time we were together. I turned it over my son, who loved his grandparents. I just recently placed my mom's heavy bronze cigarette case on my nightstand. She'd quit long before she passed and I kept it for my junk and loose change. It now holds my collection of guitar picks.

 

[KeithD]

I love the nostalgic things like your great granddad's shaving kit. I remember keeping my dad's old Barlow pocket knife that he carried the whole time we were together. I turned it over my son, who loved his grandparents. I just recently placed my mom's heavy bronze cigarette case on my nightstand. She'd quit long before she passed and I kept it for my junk and loose change. It now holds my collection of guitar picks.

My dad carried two "lucky" chestnuts (yes, just plain old chestnuts) through two wars. They came to me. I had them in my pocket through a couple of dicey international incident operations. My son now has them (and is probably laughing his head off that he does). I don't know how my dad arrived at them, but it couldn't have been from his father, who was quite unlucky, having died at thirty-nine from the Spanish flu.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I’m working out how to preserve the stories of my girls and my, and others, photographic record of them for posterity. When most of them were in their pomp, photographs and magazines, even bulletin boards, were relatively transient, and it was assumed they’d be lost to posterity within a few years or a generation.

Now, appropriately stored online, they can be preserved and shared for as long as the internet exists. For ever?

My issue is, how can this be done for free? I don’t intend to be paying for online storage on the cloud forever. I need to an open access site funded by advertising, similar to Lit, but able to store photo heavy submissions.

In that documentary, one of the men comments that digital preservation has its limits. The methods of storage change frequently, and devices fail like any other piece of equipment. He even says that preserving the film itself in a cool, dry place is a long-lasting method. He gives it 500 years that way. Then what happens?

Human beings are haunted by the idea that their lives, and everything that do and make, is temporary, sooner or later. I just read that the architects of New York's Penn Station designed it to last 500 years. The final pieces of it lasted for fifty-six.

 

[RoperTrace]

My dad carried two "lucky" chestnuts (yes, just plain old chestnuts) through two wars. They came to me. I had them in my pocket through a couple of dicey international incident operations. My son now has them (and is probably laughing his head off that he does). I don't know how my dad arrived at them, but it couldn't have been from his father, who was quite unlucky, having died at thirty-nine from the Spanish flu.

I recall hearing someone else in our small town carried a lucky chestnut also, not sure how many or why? It seems we have some common experiences as my dad and his brother, when both were young, lived through the Spanish flu epidemic. Their mother, my grandmother was immune to it, so she wound up taking care of a lot of sick neighbors in rural Virginia during that time. Her luck ran out much later in life in a freakish accident when a semi-truck tire rolled off of a moving truck and it crashed through her kitchen as she stood at her sink. It didn't end her life immediately, but contributed to her life being shortened from her damaged lungs.

 

[XerXesXu]

In that documentary, one of the men comments that digital preservation has its limits. The methods of storage change frequently, and devices fail like any other piece of equipment. He even says that preserving the film itself in a cool, dry place is a long-lasting method. He gives it 500 years that way. Then what happens?

Human beings are haunted by the idea that their lives, and everything that do and make, is temporary, sooner or later. I just read that the architects of New York's Penn Station designed it to last 500 years. The final pieces of it lasted for fifty-six.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

 

[KeithD]

I recall hearing someone else in our small town carried a lucky chestnut also, not sure how many or why? It seems we have some common experiences as my dad and his brother, when both were young, lived through the Spanish flu epidemic. Their mother, my grandmother was immune to it, so she wound up taking care of a lot of sick neighbors in rural Virginia during that time. Her luck ran out much later in life in a freakish accident when a semi-truck tire rolled off of a moving truck and it crashed through her kitchen as she stood at her sink. It didn't end her life immediately, but contributed to her life being shortened from her damaged lungs.

My paternal grandfather was at the top of the world when he was struck with the Spanish flu and died (in three days). He owned the largest insurance company in the region and had just been elected state treasurer. My grandmother was the county clerk. The flu not only killed him; it also wiped out the insurance company, because they had to pay out on so many deaths. My grandmother was given the option of going to his funeral or being at home when two of her children (including my father) died--or so it was believed would happen. The two children survived. A couple of weeks later the courthouse burned down, so my grandmother was out of a job. She packed everyone into two Buicks and drove west to homestead in Colorado, to open one of the first J.C. Penny stores in Colorado (hired by J.C. Penny himself. He'd started the stores in Wyoming), and to found a political dynasty there.

As far as the "chestnut in the pocket" idea as good luck, that apparently has foundation. I found this on the Internet:

"In the early 19th century, the Germans and Dutch believed the horse chestnut (very similar in appearance to the buckeye) held special powers, including a cure for headaches, rheumatism, arthritis and decreased libido. Superstition experts think immigrants to North America transferred these beliefs over to the similar-looking buckeye, and the legend just stuck.

"Why carry it in your pocket? Convenience, maybe. You can simply reach into your pocket and rub it or twirl it between your fingers for good luck. If you lose it, there's usually another one lying around somewhere."

Ah, a cure for decreased libido. Of course.

 

[RoperTrace]

Ah, a cure for decreased libido. Of course.

Now, you tell me?