I have always been a fan of "Antiques Roadshow" and have recently fallen in love with a show called "Strange Inheritance". I admire those who collect antiques. I like old things that time has tried and proven good and strong and true. I like old things. They have a depth not understood by things that are new. I prefer the architecture of New England, the old Georgian style homes and the ancient adobe of the Southwest to the Arts and Crafts Movement or the Victorian Age. And I prefer all that architecture to the weird trend toward modernism.
I also enjoy a good treasure hunt from time to time and enjoy shows where they are searching for ancient cities or vanished civilizations that are on the History Channel or the likes.
One day, while walking through the woods, I noticed a mug hanging from a branch on a tree high up on a trail. Curious sort that I am, I took the mug off the tree and, inside, I found a card with a note telling me congratulations and connecting me with the designer's Instagram page. I contacted her and found out that she does treasure hunts all over the place and places her items on trails throughout the area in hopes that someone will pick them up and reach out. A clever idea, in my opinion, because I love a good mystery and a good treasure hunt. And, some day, I might be able to purchase another one of her marvelous creations.
When a friend contacted me about a garage sale they had been having because they were getting rid of things before moving out of state, she said they had been a little skeptical at first. As their stuff left in buyers' vehicles, though, they started scavenging for more items to sell. After they finished the sale, a load of books they brought to the half-price store brought in more cash for the coffer.
Awhile back, I threw away stuff worth $50,000. Conservatively. Maybe more. Unceremoniously sent it packing, to wherever outmoded equipment goes.
The irony is that "outmoded" now applies to anything not made within the last three years. Computers, both PC and Mac, and monitors, dot matrix printers, early generation laser printers, keyboards, cables galore, disk storage devices of one kind or another - all were "latest and greatest" not so long ago, now just high-tech trash that piles up in landfills, where they stay forever. Some of it was dead; some of it worked, but had been rendered archaic by newer, faster, more versatile equipment. Unloved. Unwanted. Transistorized dinosaurs.
There used to be a saying that a new automobile depreciated 40 percent when it was driven off the showroom floor. The new maxim is that today's technology is obsolete by the time you get it home and out of the box.
The first computers we got, were "state of the art" (ha!) with speedy 25 mHz processors, 55 MB hard drives, 15-inch color monitors. That was more computing power than the astronauts had on the space craft that took them to the moon and back. Now, it is laughable. Chips in today's computers are rated gigaHertz and contain a million or more transistors. Hard drives are 75 to 100 gigabytes and, just around the corner, they will be rated in terabytes. Even my cell phone has 32 GB of memory. In fact, the techno geeks say it is only a matter of time until we will all have tiny cameras that can see and hear and record every second of every day of our entire lives.
Somewhere I still have an IBM Selectric my mother gave me when she retired from her office job with the State of Texas, probably the best typewriter ever made (even if it did weigh 50 pounds). I never use it, but I cannot bear to junk it. If all electronic devices ever get fried, I can still crank out a newspaper or newsletter with manual methods.
Returning to the topic of yard sales, have you ever found a treasure on the street?
I am not talking about a chest full of gold at the end of a rainbow, but smaller gems, like my coffee mug on the tree.
Or do you always buy your treasures from a store?
And more importantly, do you know how to separate treasures from trash?
Sometimes one man's trash is another man's treasures, but sometimes one man's trash is just trash.
When you think about the things you own, one way to categorize all of your items is the 4T-method: Treasures, tools, toys and trash.
When you categorize your things using this method, you only think about two functions: usability and love.
Treasures are something you love but do not use, like most of the items on "Antiques Roadshow" or similar shows. These could be photographs or a gift from your late grandmother. Or, in my case, cat sculptures.
Tools are something you do not love, but you do use, like a vacuum cleaner.
Toys are something you love and use, like a smoothie maker (if you happen to be a smoothie lover), an iPhone (if that is your thing) or your favorite pair of leather shoes.
And trash is all the rest. The things you do not love and you do not use.
Warning! If most the things in your home are treasures, I would suggest that you reevaluate what you love. You might be only a few steps away from turning your castle full of treasures into a hoarder's house.
Those things in the trash category are not always trash. They might be a treasure, tool, or toy for someone else.
And so the saying goes: one man's trash is another man's treasure.
Would you give a home to someone else's trash?
Well, I did. The temptation was too much. And I am now the proud owner of a handmade pottery coffee mug in its prime.
And, just in case you were wondering, I did clean it. Very passionately. And then I scrubbed it and cleaned it again, just in case. And, I am still a little cautious about using it. I did find it in the woods, after all.
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