When it was time to clean out my parents’ house, and Edie’s parents’ house, it was pretty easy. They lived in modestly sized homes, there were family members around who took some things (my sister in St. Louis took quite a bit), we had a one day non-professional estate sale at Edie’s, and we gave things to charity and threw out the rest. My mother never wanted anything that wasn’t top quality and, because she couldn’t afford a Picasso, she had a limited number of things. My father had no feeling for possessions at all. Basically, he left behind his clothes.

Our house is totally different. There is so much in it that it will take our two daughters decades to dispose of things. It is, I know, irresponsible of us to leave them with that task, but it sure looks like that is what we are going to do.

Sure, I could throw some things out today. Like, for example, a large cardboard box filled with a few hundred foreign cigarette  packages.

With a small number ofUI exceptions that were given to me, I picked them all up off the street on various trips, or on the streets of DC. I will still pick one up off the streets if I come across one, but the pandemic really changed things. You might not have noticed, but you see many fewer empty cigarette packs on the street than you did prior to 2020. That is a fact.

At one point, my collection wasn’t limited to foreign packages. I had an equivalent box with domestic packs (only one of a kind), and another of other tobacco products, like chewing tobacco and cigarillos. Some time ago, both went into the trash.

The cigarillos really surprised me. Every flavor imaginable, and they were everywhere along the streets of DC. But…..I never saw anyone smoking them. I could never figure it out.

Picking these things up as I took long walks (something I do much less of now) served two purposes. First, it gave me a goal for my walks and having a goal was important. Second, like any collection you build, you become interested in both the differences and similarities of what you are putting together. Designs, for example. Or the large variety in so many languages of warning about the dangers of smoking. Or in how many different parts of the world they make Marlboros or Lucky Strikes. Or how much more colorful cigarette boxes are elsewhere, even in Canada.

Now, I never open this box to look through my cigarette packets. Never. And I could take this box and throw it in the trash. Or I guess ask on Facebook Marketplace if anyone wants it.

But I wouldn’t be doing my kids much of a favor by doing this, would I? Throwing this box out would be so easy for them. It isn’t even heavy. You pick it up, put it in the trash, and you have a feeling of accomplishment, of immediate gratification. I don’t want to take that from them. Everything else is so difficult.

In addition to picking up cigarette packs as I took walks, I would also pick up business cards. They too have pretty much disappeared since the pandemic. I have well more than a thousand business cards. I could throw them out, too, but why? They take up very little space.

The same is true of my collection of bookmarks. How many? I am not sure, certainly hundreds and, like the cigarettes and business cards, come from all over. I especially like the bookmarks from foreign bookstores, those made of materials other than paper, and those approaching 100 years old.

And of course, there is my collection of (only) 60 or so foreign Hard Rock Cafe tee-shirts. I see them advertised on EBay for $10 or $15 apiece, so they aren’t ready for the trash heap. If I had the energy, I would dispos of them myself and not leave these to the kids, but …….

Getting rid of these 4 collections wouldn’t give much of a break to Michelle and Hannah. They would still have 99.99% of my stuff to remove. Of course, the easiest thing would be to rent a storage space or two. Then, they could leave everything to their kids. But that would be heartless, wouldn’t it?

I have long been a fan of Williams Davies King (about whom I know very little) a professor of theater at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  He has written about the art of collecting items that are themselves individually nothing, but become something when they form a collection. He has written about his collection of pieces of scrap metal that he picks up while he walks around town, as well as his collection of cereal boxes. It is so reassuring to know you are not alone.