My husband and I have lived in our house since 1984. I don’t know when it happened, but the attic has become filled beyond capacity.
I would like to blame the previous owners, but we had a requirement in our purchase agreement that they clear out all their stuff before we moved in.
To be clear, in the “Trash and Treasure” department, there is no treasure. If it was treasure, it didn’t go into the attic.
Up there we had remnants of our childhoods, our parents’ childhoods and, of course, our children’s childhoods. Multigenerational photographs and yearbooks, fraternity and military memorabilia, collections of airplane models and stamps bulged from trunks and broken cardboard boxes. There were also bits and pieces from more than 40 years of our married life.
What better time than a quarantine to clean out the attic?
The process began slowly, mostly on Saturday mornings. Down came my old Barbie doll collection, melty and yellowed from heat and age, and went straight into the garbage. The metal ice chest that weighed a ton — empty — was banished. Those old suitcases without wheels — big enough to pack a pony — went straight to Goodwill.
It was like an archaeological dig, without the mummy but with plenty of dirt.
Recently we hit the strata of our children’s belongings. When the boys first left home I carefully packed up all the important things from their rooms. At the time I thought how easy it would be to ship these things off to them whenever they were ready. I took down the posters and wound them into manageable rolls. I boxed their lidded plastic prom cups including the long-dead boutonnieres. I wrapped all of their trophies in newspaper and put them in boxes along with their medals and ribbons.
One Saturday, we brought it all down into the light of day. We removed the cups from their boxes, unrolled the posters and lined up the trophies in neat rows. We sent photos and videos of these priceless possessions to the owners and inquired about their interest. The response was, as they say, “crickets.”
The boys are now filling their own attics, and their children are collecting their own posters and trophies.
As the debris went into the heavy-duty garbage bags, I realized the cause of the current predicament was our inability to make the tough decisions.
Right then I created some guidelines to help us complete the clean-out. First, if an object is being saved for the kids, see above at “crickets.” Second, if items are being kept to enhance a memory, make sure it’s a good memory. Finally, if the thing has been spotted on a ’70s sitcom, like maybe “The Brady Bunch,” let it go!
But about those cassette tapes …
— Thompson lives in Baton Rouge
Advocate readers may submit stories of about 500 words to The Human Condition at features@theadvocate.com. There is no payment, and stories will be edited. Authors should include their city of residence, and, if writing about yourself, a photo.
