I Keep Holding On To Yesterday

It's in my blood. I can't help it, or myself. My name is Railyn. I am a packrat.

I place the blame solely on my late Grandma Rose. She grew up during the depression, in a poor Jewish family that fled Russia in the middle of the night during the Bolshevik Revolution. They landed in Philadelphia, and set up a new life for themselves.

I'm not getting down on Grandma Rose. Not at all. She was a great lady. She could do amazing things with little supplies or money. Think MacGyver, but as a 4'10" woman with a fiery attitude and a cigarette perpetually hanging out the side of her mouth. After she and Grandpa Bill passed, we were amazed at the things we dug out of her house. Tons of Sucrets boxes full of buttons, bra hooks and eyes, and snaps. Bags full of zippers. Tons of scraps of fabric that weren't large enough to do much of anything with. Her jewelry box was full of broken pieces, and uprooted stones. To most people, it looked like junk, but it was a way of life for her - a necessity for survival.

Every time clothing had passed it's usefulness, everything that could be harvested was removed: buttons, snaps, hooks and eyes, zippers...... They were saved, in case they might be needed again. The clothing itself was cut in to pieces, and used for any number of things, from rags to pillow stuffing. Same with jewelry that ended up broken. She might be able to use the stones from it again if one happened to fall out, or perhaps she could repair a broken pin with pieces from another. We initially shook our heads, but then gave her props for it. While it created a mountain of stuff to sort out and toss, she managed to save money wherever she could. In a throw-away society, she never wasted anything.

My mom picked up her habit. She didn't save bits of cloth or buttons, but she's got old outdated clothing, shoes and purses galore, and more boxes of books than most libraries. Being that her parents were antiques dealers later in life, she never threw out a bunch of knick-knacks, dishes, and other things because "they might be valuable". That's the bad habit that I then picked up.

I collect stuff. Problem is, I get gung ho on something, then tire of it. I married someone the same way. He picked that habit up from his mother. I try not to tap in to the latest fads, though, as she did. She had more Beanie Babies than I would ever know what to do with. They still sit in the largest tote that Rubbermaid has. Nelson's step-dad wanted to get rid of them, but collectively they're worth less than she paid for one of the more expensive ones.


I started collecting Star Wars when the movies were retooled and re released. I got weary of it quickly, and it sits in a box in the basement. I was on a View Master kick for a while. I've always loved them, but instead of just buying reels, I bought a Talking View Master that works well, but by design they sound like garbage. It's gathering dust in a closet. I got on a brief Rugrats kick - that stuff sits in the basement as well. Same with Lilo and Stitch. And the music group KISS. Tons of stuff sitting around gathering dust. And we won't even start on Nelson's collection of Matchbox Convoy trucks, or older WWF merchandise.

When Nelson's step-dad moved, he couldn't fit his 64" Sony Projection TV in the new house anywhere that it worked well. He asked us if we wanted it. Um, yeah! Then we looked at our house. The amount of crap was just unbelievable. We thought about just packaging it up and sending it downstairs, but that just makes more problems - the basement is very full......of junk we put down there.

We started going through boxes. It went like this:

"Um, why do we have this?"
"Well, I bought that for you when........."
"Ok. We'll keep it."
"Ok, why do we have this?"
"Remember, you liked {insert here} and your mom bought that for you......"
"Ok. We'll keep it."


Repeat as needed.

Several hours later, all we had done was shuffled things from one box to another. We tossed a few things, but nothing worth writing home about. We finally decided enough was enough. Several garbage bags and boxes later, we've cleared an amazing amount of room at the house. Total crap got thrown, things that someone else might want were set aside for a yard sale which will take place in about 2 weeks, and anything remotely valuable (WWF Stuff, Star Wars Stuff, etc) is being sent to the ebay Drop Off store. It was time to let a lot of stuff go, and put a period to a lot of partial collections.


I kept two things from the Star Wars end: an Ewok that belongs to Nelson, and my Chewbacca statue that is carrying C3PO on his back in pieces. The rest is gone - books, small figures, etc. I've kept all my View Master viewers and reels, but anything having to do with the Talking View Master is gone. Most of my KISS stuff is going. I'm keeping a few things, but the books (except for my KISSTORY book), action figures, patches, framed photos, posters, and stuff like that are going. Anything Rugrats is gone. Anything Lilo and Stitch, with the exception of my lithographs, is gone. All WWF stuff, with the exception of a few videos and dvd's, is gone. Matchbox Convoy Trucks and Over-The-Road Convoy Truck Stop: gone. It's quite liberating.

I'm retaining my Olympics collection, my Monkees collection, my New York Rangers collection, and my record collection. Nelson is keeping his Miami Dolphins and Dan Marino collections. I am not eliminating my vast sheep collection, but it is being pared down considerably. I am also thinning out my board games in terms of games we found weren't fun, or we don't play, or that I have duplicates of.


I'm shocked at how much extra room we have, even with a massive TV taking up a big chunk of our living room.

So people out there that have ever received a gift from me: you needn't hang on to it if you never use it, or have lost your enthusiasm for whatever it was. Please don't clutter your house on my account. You have my blessing to regift, yard sale, Goodwill, or ebay it. Chances are good, I may have done the same to you........