Let’s Hear it for: Old, Used, Recycled

Another Way for week of March 26, 2021

Let’s Hear it for: Old, Used, Recycled

(Editor’s Note: Second in an eight-week series, “Let’s Hear It,” with thoughts on trends.)

Do you like old? Shabby chic? Vintage? If there’s an opposite to this perhaps its sleek, gray, upscale, modern.

They say Gen Xers and younger don’t go so much for old and antique and yard sale finds. What things are precious, and what things are just old?

I have an old sewing box that is very cute, but I have absolutely no idea what to do with it other than keep it in the guest bedroom. It was a keepsake from my husband’s Aunt Ressie. We have a lot of those from Aunt Ressie because she married very late in life and had no children. The nieces and nephews—and then her great nieces and nephews—were her kids. She bought stuff for them every Christmas until they reached the age of maybe 10 or 12. The sewing box is beautiful and I’m guessing it was something that was passed down to her. It has old vintage wrappers of the tiniest needles, wooden spools, and darning eggs.

Things that bring memories are hard to let go of or pass on. A friend, Ronda, recently posted this comment on Facebook along with pictures of two cuckoo clocks. They moved to a different home last year in a rough year when she also lost her beloved mother.

“My dear Hubby hung two cuckoo clocks. The first one was my grandfather’s, my mother’s father’s clock. It’s old but I don’t know how much it’s worth. Priceless to me. The second one, is more valuable as it is handmade from the clock makers in the Black-forest, Germany. I watched my parents pick it out and I listened to them tell one another how much they liked the love birds. The trip down the Rhine River with my parents will always be a treasured memory and this clock represents that lovely memory. A few minutes ago, it cuckoo-ed eight o’clock for the first time in our home. I laughed out loud. Who knew I would love cuckoo clocks?”

We have a friend who had a piece of wood from an old buggy harness called a “wagon singletree.” He loves antiques. He asked my husband to use a drill press to make a hole in it to create a light fixture for his kitchen featuring upside down colanders. You may have seen such. It turned out pretty cool. Maybe I’ll think of a special use for the sewing box.

I remember interviewing a favorite professor for a radio program I worked for. I was probably in my late thirties. By that time he was in his early 60s, Something he said in that interview stuck with me. He wanted to get out of his rut as a college professor and wanted to see how different people lived. He took a sabbatical and worked in a Sears store in their stockroom. Some of the coworkers began to think he was a lackey for management. We were talking about acquiring things and he said what he was about in his sixties was getting rid of things, paring back, not buying more.

I feel like I’m somewhat at that stage of life. Especially this past year of the pandemic. New clothes seemed unimportant, especially in retirement. I’ve pondered how to cut back on what we have. I even hate to throw things away that have only been used one time—like the Styrofoam carryout boxes from a restaurant. If I can wash them and get a second use out of them, that makes it feel more worthwhile. Yet I don’t want to fill my cabinets and drawers with used Styrofoam containers. My favorite thing to do is fill them with food to pass on to my elderly neighbors.

P.S. May we all keep a sacred and holy Good Friday today. Blessings!

***

Do you like old things? Do your children or grandchildren?

Are they precious mementos, or junk?

Do you lean toward wanting to sell things, or just give them away to family?

I’d love to hear comments here or send your own stories to anotherwaymedia@yahoo.com or Another Way Media, P.O. Box 363, Singers Glen, VA 22834.

Another Way is a column by Melodie Davis, in syndication since 1987. She is the author of nine books. Another Way columns are posted at FindingHarmonyBlog.com a week after newspaper publication.