![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fried in Riverside
Aug. 15th, 2006 09:17 pmI got back yesterday after spending the weekend doing my best to sell everything left on my dad's premises.
I did bring things home. I have my Dad's Korean War era winter jacket that was almost certainly issued to him during boot camp in the winter of 1953. (It was nice for here, but no wonder the guys sent to Korea froze.) I also brought back all the rest of his stuff of any significant value, either financial or personal.
Despite having filled a 40 cubic yard roll-off waste bin on the previous trip, I had nowhere near enough room for all the trash I generated on this one. I was there all last week, sorting, digging into places never yet seen, setting up for the sale, and sequestering things I did not want to vanish. (My precautions were well advised, for someone walked off with my roll of masking tape for price tagging.) I had seen and saved most of the documents on previous trips. With the stories from those documents in mind going through the objects was rather like holding a funeral over and over again.
Where's my dad? In Tennessee only 5 minutes away from my brother; he visits on most days. He reports that Dad has been moved to the wing best suited for his condition. That is to say, not able to move much on the right side, and not able to deliver more than a short sentence at the best of times.
I held an estate sale on the weekend, packed (and decided what to abandon) Monday, and drove back home to see the girls. I had well over $1000 in my dad's money belt (thanks, Dad, for having that lying around); it is now in the bank. I think that's over half the value of the material I wanted to sell, but I sold well less than half the volume of stuff. Good luck to the second hand stores for when the rest gets hauled off. Good luck to me processing and winnowing all the stuff I've brought home.
Folks wandered through the sale all day both days. Some were there for the stuff; some were there to consider buying the place. The realtor had to replenish his supply of flyers.
I told one customer that I would be there until the stars came out. That evening one of her friends came over, knocked, and repeated what I had said. I pointed out Jupiter. She responded that it was a planet. I don't know if she could see the smile on my face in the dimming light, but she got the file cabinet she sought. I found Vega before we were done, but I knew well enough to keep my mouth shut.
(That was the best interaction I've had with a non-astronomer since someone called the observatory to report a strange blinking object in the south, and when I bicycled over to their stretch of beach they invited me for some wine and conversation after I identified Antares.)
When folks asked why I was holding the sale I told of Dad's stroke. When they expressed their sorrows I said that he was with my brother and that Dad had traded a life of toil and loneliness for one of rest and family. I suppose that's the inner core me looking at life.
The last treasure I found was when I realized that there was a small bank sitting forlorn on the bookshelves from which I had donated 1000 books to the local library. The bank clearly dated from my dad's youth. I pried it open and found pennies, all wheatbacks, and four of them made of steel from 1943 -- almost certainly untouched by human hands since that year.
Among the things I processed were some books my dad had got from our church library in 1974. (It's a good thing they don't charge fines for overdue.) I decided to return them along with several hundred other books more suitable for a church library than a county library. After I returned them I walked my old neighborhood. Oil is valuable, and although all the land which was orange groves is converted to houses, the pumps are still pulling up buckets of crude. Then I decided to drive toward where Mom had moved. I think I found it, but I was strangely unsure of whether I had really navigated correctly. From there I zigzagged hesitatingly along old memories to where Artemis had lived.
So now it's time to see whether there really are Linux drivers for all the hardware my dad had lying around (in particular, the scanner) and to stow things well enough to permit normal life until I use the scanner to reduce much of the content to bits instead of piles.
Oh, and there's getting back to work, and preparing for the Girl Scout astronomy camp out this weekend with my girls, and ...
I did bring things home. I have my Dad's Korean War era winter jacket that was almost certainly issued to him during boot camp in the winter of 1953. (It was nice for here, but no wonder the guys sent to Korea froze.) I also brought back all the rest of his stuff of any significant value, either financial or personal.
Despite having filled a 40 cubic yard roll-off waste bin on the previous trip, I had nowhere near enough room for all the trash I generated on this one. I was there all last week, sorting, digging into places never yet seen, setting up for the sale, and sequestering things I did not want to vanish. (My precautions were well advised, for someone walked off with my roll of masking tape for price tagging.) I had seen and saved most of the documents on previous trips. With the stories from those documents in mind going through the objects was rather like holding a funeral over and over again.
Where's my dad? In Tennessee only 5 minutes away from my brother; he visits on most days. He reports that Dad has been moved to the wing best suited for his condition. That is to say, not able to move much on the right side, and not able to deliver more than a short sentence at the best of times.
I held an estate sale on the weekend, packed (and decided what to abandon) Monday, and drove back home to see the girls. I had well over $1000 in my dad's money belt (thanks, Dad, for having that lying around); it is now in the bank. I think that's over half the value of the material I wanted to sell, but I sold well less than half the volume of stuff. Good luck to the second hand stores for when the rest gets hauled off. Good luck to me processing and winnowing all the stuff I've brought home.
Folks wandered through the sale all day both days. Some were there for the stuff; some were there to consider buying the place. The realtor had to replenish his supply of flyers.
I told one customer that I would be there until the stars came out. That evening one of her friends came over, knocked, and repeated what I had said. I pointed out Jupiter. She responded that it was a planet. I don't know if she could see the smile on my face in the dimming light, but she got the file cabinet she sought. I found Vega before we were done, but I knew well enough to keep my mouth shut.
(That was the best interaction I've had with a non-astronomer since someone called the observatory to report a strange blinking object in the south, and when I bicycled over to their stretch of beach they invited me for some wine and conversation after I identified Antares.)
When folks asked why I was holding the sale I told of Dad's stroke. When they expressed their sorrows I said that he was with my brother and that Dad had traded a life of toil and loneliness for one of rest and family. I suppose that's the inner core me looking at life.
The last treasure I found was when I realized that there was a small bank sitting forlorn on the bookshelves from which I had donated 1000 books to the local library. The bank clearly dated from my dad's youth. I pried it open and found pennies, all wheatbacks, and four of them made of steel from 1943 -- almost certainly untouched by human hands since that year.
Among the things I processed were some books my dad had got from our church library in 1974. (It's a good thing they don't charge fines for overdue.) I decided to return them along with several hundred other books more suitable for a church library than a county library. After I returned them I walked my old neighborhood. Oil is valuable, and although all the land which was orange groves is converted to houses, the pumps are still pulling up buckets of crude. Then I decided to drive toward where Mom had moved. I think I found it, but I was strangely unsure of whether I had really navigated correctly. From there I zigzagged hesitatingly along old memories to where Artemis had lived.
So now it's time to see whether there really are Linux drivers for all the hardware my dad had lying around (in particular, the scanner) and to stow things well enough to permit normal life until I use the scanner to reduce much of the content to bits instead of piles.
Oh, and there's getting back to work, and preparing for the Girl Scout astronomy camp out this weekend with my girls, and ...
