My 100th Post

Funny how in a little over a year I have found 99 things to write about, something that would have seemed absurd to me 2 years ago. Over these last 99 posts I have shared my thoughts. I have beared my soul. I have ranted, and I have offered tributes to several things from Hardees Hand Breaded Chicken Tenders to All in the Family to Gypsy Rose Lee. I have thought in the past couple of days what my 100th post should be. I decided to write about STUFF. The inspiration for this? Over the last several months my sister and I and a host of friends and family have been cleaning out my mother's house. She moved to independent living last November after living in the house for over 30 years. 30 years worth of accumulation of STUFF! The late, great comedian, George Carlin, does a great stand-up routine about STUFF that is hilarious and all too true about we as a people and our obsession with things.

 I can't tell you the bags and bags of things that we threw out or gave away. Living in the same house myself, I went through many boxes of my own things. The things I saved, receipts and school papers, not special papers, just every day, generic, "I did my homework" papers. Why? I got to thinking, and not to sound morbid, but when I am gone, who would care about this Algebra II paper from 6th period with Ms. Ruben? More importantly, why did I care enough to save it? Now, I will say, things changed greatly with the invention and ever evolving technology of cyberspace. We store things in different ways now. The boxes and boxes of pictures I took then are stored on my computer now, and I can share them in an instant. Will this lead to future generations having less stuff? Less paper maybe. We had a service come in and price all of the STUFF and this weekend my family's stuff will be up for sale to the general public. Months and months to go through things and you would think I'd be glad to be rid of it. Some things, certainly, but today as I looked at photos all of our things posted on the internet to advertise the sale, I couldn't help but feel a little sad. Things from my childhood brought memories flooding back, and I got a little teary. I guess it's like saying good-bye to old friends. It's something from that part of my life that stayed the same, that didn't change, and somehow holding on to it lets me hold on to my past. I mean, come on, it's just STUFF, or is it?