Useful Junk

I thought I would write a post entitled, 'Useful Junk.' And then I could tell about the long list of stuff that resides in various nooks and crannies of our property, such as a chartreuse-gold ceramic bedpan my husband found on a jobsite. He came home with 'Hey, look what I found! I bet it's an antique!'




or the several perfectly good slate blackboards we acquired because the schools were pitching them. 'How can they DO that?? Why would anyone want a dry-erase board when they could have this beautiful slate board??' I would demand, stroking the blackboard and for some strange reason, feeling a little sorry for it for being discarded.




Then there are the time-capsule-worthy artifacts, like the huge pink rollers I used on my hair when I was sixteen. Yes, sixteen for me was quite some time ago. In fact, just a year after the Kennedy assassination - and I do remember where I was. I may not have any Kennedy memorabilia, which might actually have some monetary value, but I do have 3" diameter pink rollers! I've hung onto those rollers all these years so that my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren could see them some day and appreciate what great lengths young women of the 1960s went to, to ensure they would wake up with a stiff neck.

And someday, as the wee great-grandchildren crowd around to hear Great Grandma croak out another story, I will tell about the days I used to iron my long hair in attempt to look hip, like Mary, as in 'Peter, Paul, and...' who were always leavin' on a jet plane, while I was always just leavin' on the school bus. And have you noticed, that you can turn on your TV and still find Peter, Paul, and Mary, still leavin' on a jet plane! for yet another pledge drive.




My pink rollers are still in the granary - where I put them when we moved here 21 years ago.

And our collection wouldn't be complete without lawnmowers in various stages of disrepair. Then again, one never knows when someone will show up with just the right part to fix it - and leave it lying there, next to the broken lawn mower, for another generation.

Growing up with parents who endured The Great Depression of the 1930s, some things just rub off on you. I'll admit, it's not just my husband who falls easy prey to the unusual and possibly useless. For me too, it's hard to throw away a plastic ground-turkey container when I know it can be converted into a drawer divider or a picnic lunch box or a raspberry 'basket' or a crayon box! That type of thing.

Just wait. In a year or two, or sooner, when times get really tough, when unemployment has risen through the roof and hyperinflation has kicked in, you'll wish you'd hung onto your pink rollers and your chartreuse-gold bedpan too, I bet!