Category Archives: home improvements

Bible study, books, critique group, family, home improvements, Magazines

Getting Rid of Some Books

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This was an okay book, not great. Not sure of its truth. Will never read it again, so it’s gone, today added to the sale/donation pile.

Our efforts at dis-accumulating continue. Perhaps not as fast as needed to do a downsizing in this decade, but we make a little progress. The last month has seen the old postcard collection acquired in the mid-1980s, having been left behind in the house we bought, for $115. But the buyer wanted me to ship it to Houston and so didn’t want the small, steel cabinet. I was able to sell that for an extra $10.

Then Lynda decided she was willing to part with the Gulf War memorabilia she brought back from Kuwait in 1991. They were supposedly Iraqi items. I listed them on Facebook Marketplace, not being sure they would sell. After one price reduction, a mom contacted me. She wanted them for her son (maybe a teenager), who loves military stuff. We were able to arrange a transfer that was convenient to both of us.

But really, the big thing we need to part with is books. For a bookiphile, that’s like cutting your wrist. But we have to do it. Despite the number of books we’ve gotten rid of, we still have at least 2,000 books in the house. I gave one away at writer’s critique group last week.

One book obviously isn’t much; we need to do more. In our living room is a built-in bookcase.  We are going to have to dismantle this to repair some water damage that appears to be from improperly installed flashing around the chimney. We have already removed some books from the lower shelves and piled them, to prevent them from being damaged and allow the bookcase to dry from a little moisture found.

As Lynda and I discussed it, she suggested that we get rid of a series of Bible study books that are shelved on that built-in. We went through one of those books together, and started a second. They aren’t bad books. I learned something from them. But when you have 2,000 books, and need to unload at least a thousand, I agreed with her to put those in the sale/donation pile.

I then suggested we also get rid of two books from the built-ins, the two books in The Bible Code series. We read these aloud together. They are an easy read because the books are not long, are well-written, and have lots of illustrations of where the Bible may have a code in the books of Moses. I say “may have” because, while the writer makes a good case, I’m not fully convinced it’s true.

At first Lynda balked. She was more accepting of the Bible code than I was and thought more of the books than I did. But then she agreed with me that we read the books, got something from them, and with all the other books in the house we were unlikely to read them ever again. So she agreed to get rid of them. I’ll move them out tomorrow.

I also have a fairly large set of magazines about World War 2 that I got from my dad. I had intended to read them, but it looks as if I never will. I have them listed on Marketplace and lowered the price twice. I think I’ll do so again and see if they will sell. Also on the getting-rid-of-block is my collection of WW2 history books. They are all good. If I had a shortage of books I would probably read all of them again. But, with a book surplus and a shortage of years ahead, I think they will also go up for sale.

Six Bible studies, two Bible codes are a long way from 1,000 books. A good sized box of magazines, and perhaps ten war books are not much. But it’s a start. I’m hoping over Thanksgiving, when our children are here, we will be able to take some time to go through a few things and, with their encouragement, get rid of some things we haven’t done anything with since the 1970s through 1990s.

And that will be a good start.

Bible study, construction, critique group, family, home improvements

Grinding, Part 2

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In my last post, I wrote about how I was grinding through a bunch of tasks, and, to keep them all straight, I needed a to-do list.  I’m in The Dungeon right now, writing this, and I don’t my current to-do list with me, so I’m starting a new one.

I do these on a long, narrow note pad that we’ve had for years. I found this pad in the desk in The Dungeon, something that isn’t used too much. I was given to us when we bought our house in Bentonville in 1991. Time to use it up I would say. It’s perfect for to-do lists.

As far as what got done from the last to-do list:

  • Flu shots.
  • Heard back from two contractors. One gave me a little more information on his schedule, moving the work out some. The other apologized for not getting me an estimate yet and established a date when he would. I would have to say, I feel a little better about contractors today.
  • Got my hair cut.
  • Continued to write in my current work-in-progress, A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. I should finish a chapter today, putting me at 70 percent finished with the first draft. That puts me a little behind where I hoped to be by this time, but I’m not unhappy with my progress.
  • Got some filing done, though I have much more of that to do.
  • Attended my writers’ critique group last night. A good meeting; I might blog about it next.
  • Have started getting things together for Thanksgiving.

And Thanksgiving will dominate my next to-do list, which I started by interrupting writing this. Lots to do in terms of cleaning and organizing. Also buying in some groceries. I’m trying to plan our meals so that we get to Monday night’s supper, the last we will have alone, finishing the last prepared item.

It will be a good Thanksgiving, with both of our children, their spouses, and all our grandchildren here. It may also be the last family gathering at our house for a while, as henceforth we might shift these to our daughter’s house.

So carry on, everyone. My wishes to out to you, a bit early, for a happy Thanksgiving.

family, Genealogy, home improvements, miscellaneous

Grinding

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Dateline: Sunday, 12 Nov 2023

From time to time, life gets so busy that I fall back to a habit that served me well in my engineering career: making a to-do list. Not that my days are really so busy that I miss deadlines, doctor appointments, club meetings, etc. Those are relatively few in number, and easily remembered—at least those happening in the next month are.

But as I look around the house, I see lots of things that need doing. Some are small things, but they pile up. It is a needed task to clean up as much as I can before company comes Thanksgiving week. Here in The Dungeon, if I look over to the left, the worktable with our printer has piles of papers. The biggest pile is scrap paper, being kept for printing drafts of my writing for proofreading or critiques. It’s ugly, but it’s going to stay. Next to it is a notebook of genealogy files that I’m slowly scanning and saving to the cloud so that I can get rid of the paper. Also on that table are a few miscellaneous papers that I need to file. One is a charitable donation receipt I need to put with the 2021 tax returns. So far I haven’t felt like dedicating the two minutes needed to do that.

That work table also has two bank statements to file. That’s another two minute task I just haven’t felt like doing.

A little farther away are bookshelves lining the basement family room walls. At one time these were nice and neat, separated into fiction and nonfiction, and alphabetized. They may still be mostly that way, but years of reading and re-shelving, selling or donating, pulling other books from boxes, have resulted in some loose of organization. Fortunately, correcting that, while a big task, isn’t urgent.

What is urgent? Filing receipts! I suppose that’s number one. Many things I used to file have gone digital. Yet there’s still a big pile of them to file. Most of them are medical, the papers you get with each prescription. Some are medical info, others are receipts. Others are grocery store receipts, travel receipts, a few insurance statements, and a few brokerage papers that we haven’t yet switched over to digital. Once I set my mind to it, I can have these all sorted, ordered by date, and filed in about two hours. Maybe that will be a Monday task.

Then there are all the things involved with home repairs. We are inching forward with gutter and downspout replacement. My water damage restoration contractor bailed on me, so I’m having to go through it all again with a new one. I hope to hear something this week from him. And I still need to get the floor guy out here to figure out if I’ll be able to change out the ancient wall-to-wall carpet with modern flooring after all the other work is done. I guess I need to carve out a little time today to figure out which number I called was him and call to set up an inspection time.

Then there’s flu shots. We normally get them in early October, but couldn’t this year and I haven’t made appointments since then. That might be a today task as I can do that online. Oh, and the Silver Dragon need some routine servicing. I think Wednesday is free, if I can make an appointment on Monday. Oh, year, just remembered: I have some over the counter things to order as part of our Medicare Advantage Plan benefits. Better do that today as well.

Somewhere in there I need to work in some stock trading. The latter is mostly Monday through Friday, only 15 min to a half hour a day, plus an hour wrap-up on Saturday.

See why I need a to-do list? I have to grind through these things, trying to get everything done without letting something fall through the cracks.

I’m going to end this blog post here, and do those on-line things while I can. I hope on Friday I can post that I got lots done, and feel less stressed about everything.

home improvements, miscellaneous

Turn Into The Storm

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Beneath the master bathroom floor. Significant damage, though it’s old.

Back when I was working at a job outside the house, I used to say life was a whirlwind. It seemed like that most of the time. Now, in my fifth year of retirement, life is still a whirlwind.

Oh, at times all is serene. I have time to do all that I must do, much that I want to do, and even things I hope to do. From that point, life is good. Take this year and yardwork. I was quite diligent with keeping up with yardwork almost daily, a half hour to an hour after breakfast or, during the hottest part of the summer, a half hour to hour first thing in the morning. That got me to the end of September with all routine work done and one huge special project complete. It really felt good.

The non-functioning gutters poured water on the deck, causing the rot on this door frame. Repairs are a few weeks away. Into the storm.

But sometimes it’s a whirlwind. I hit October with only one of the home improvement projects planned for the year done. That was replacing the ancient burner in our propane-fueled fireplace. That was done in early August. Item 2 was to have our old deck flooring/handrail removed and replaced with new, synthetic material. I was finally able to get this underway Oct. 5, and it was completed Oct 14. Good, huh?

The third project was to replace our ancient wall-to-wall carpet in our common areas and bathrooms with some kind of tile or synthetic flooring. I had planned on getting that done close behind the deck.

Well, not so fast. The deck demolition showed some water damage, stuff that needs to be remediated before we go with anything else. Scratch that. Before those repairs we need to replace some defective/worn out guttering, which had caused some of the damage. While we were looking at that, we found other places with water damage. So the priority of projects has become gutter replacement, followed by water damage repair, then finally new flooring.

All of this has been disconcerting, due to 1) I hate spending money, and 2) I hate dealing with contractors. I’d rather do almost anything but those two things. The budget has sure been blown for this year. But, on a 37-year-old house, you can expect to have capital maintenance projects every three or four decades.

But all of this is a whirlwind, having to find and deal with contractors. I just want to put it off and sit and write and do my other favorite things. I needed to overcome inertia.

[Photo by Elijah Pilchard]
An amazing creature, the bison.
Last week, on PBS, we watched a four hour show about the American bison, two hours on two consecutive nights. It was a great program, as all Ken Burns films are. They showed how the slaughter of the bison was as much to control the Indian population as for the sport of killing. The second night was mostly about preserving the bison after they were about wiped out.

As part of that, they showed how bison did in a snowstorm. They turn into the wind and pretty much stand pat. That’s as opposed to our domestic cattle, which turn away from the storm and allow themselves to be driven with the wind, often to disastrous results. The bison can survive even major blizzards by turning into the storm.

The day after that show aired, I was in The Dungeon, at the computer, thinking of what a whirlwind—a storm—I was in with these unexpected repairs. Not wanting to spend money, not wanting to find contractors and deal with their lowball estimates followed by price hikes. Not wanting to think about what repairs would be needed in a couple of water damaged areas. A whirlwind indeed.

Then I thought of the bison and how they dealt with a storm, and decided I needed to do the same. I had to turn into the storm and face it, rather than turn away from it and be driven to disaster by circumstances. I started calling contractors.

Our deck guys also do gutters, and they are tentatively scheduled. I found a recommended remediation contractor and they will come out today to assess the damaged places and prepare an estimate. And I called the flooring contractor I’m hoping to use, one I’ve dealt with in my engineering career. He can’t get out to us for estimating for two weeks due to some time off. I said that was perfect, as his work was likely more than a month out.

So all the major projects, both the planned ones and the unplanned ones, as in the works. I must admit that feels good. My bank balance won’t thank me, but perhaps the house will when it realizes it is back to a sound structural and cosmetic condition.

Turning into the storm, in this case by making the calls and doing the things that needed to be done, has at least had some early benefits. The storm continues. But just like the bison, at least I’m headed in the right direction.

Bible study, home improvements

Once Again Unsettled

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This was left behind in the house we bought in 1984. We kept it and stored it for all these years. I was unable to make contact with any relatives of the man whose it was, so now it is sold.

So here it is, another Friday indicating another “work” week is coming to an end. Actually, I’m writing this Thursday evening. I figure I will be busy tomorrow morning with my two “jobs”, writing and stock trading. Friday is my busiest day with the latter.

It has been a good week, yet I once again have an unsettled feeling. I wrote about this before., though I can’t find that post right now. What was good? For one thing, at the close of business on Thursday, I’m beating the stock market both on the week and the year. I put in an order to take profits on a certain trade today, since I was to be tied up and couldn’t watch it. That trade filled at exactly the best possible profit today. One penny different and it wouldn’t have filled. Since the trade went way down toward the end of the day, that was an unexpected success.

37 years old, not well maintained even before we bought the place, it was time for the old deck to go.

The deck work finished last Saturday. We had them pull off the old flooring and handrails and put in synthetic wood for both.  It looks good and feels good. The spacing on the support joists were irregular in one spot, and the contractor installed an extra joist. I’m quite pleased with how it came out.

I was also able to write some today. I reached my minimal daily goal but not my hoped-for goal. The Bible study I’m writing marches on, hopefully to be finished in November. Today I had a meeting with my new pastor to discuss a couple of things that have been bugging me (not things about her, for I have felt good about her leadership and preaching in her four months here). That meeting went well. It was the first time I got to speak with her other than salutations.

Yardwork is up to date. In fact, I’ve had almost nothing to do in the yard the last two weeks. That’s a good feeling, because until this year, I have always felt perpetually behind on yardwork. We had plenty of leftovers for supper so I didn’t have to fix anything tonight. And we have plenty for the next few days.

It’s a little hard to see in this photo, but the sagging under the sunroom floor is sagging, indicating some kind of water damage.

So what’s unsettling? It’s the problem of water damage at my home. The deck work revealed some water damage due to a gutter that was incorrectly attached, possibly due to the new roof put on back in 2020. They did temporary repairs, but the damage is done. Two door frames are rotted and will have to be replaced. This also seems to extend a few feet on the flooring in the sunroom. We looked around and saw two other places that need repair from water damage. One might require the removal of built-in book cases, the other removal of our master bathroom vanity and even a wall that creates a dead air space between the bathroom and the exterior walls.

Last week I had a mold inspector out, and it turns out we do not have much mold in the house—one bit of good news. I had the insurance adjustor out today, and it’s possible, no probable, that this is not insurable as it appears to be long-term in three of the four places. I hope to hear from insurance tomorrow, but I figure the worst will result and I’ll have to pay for all the repairs.

And I need to make the repairs. Some day we will downsize and sell this house. It won’t sell with that damage showing. But as of yet, I’m waiting for the names of the certified remediation companies so that I can get proposals and estimates. I’m also waiting for the gutter guys to get me on the schedule. I spent so many years working with contractors in my employment that I hate working with them.

Ah, but the new deck is lovely. Hopefully the synthetic materials will take less maintenance than the old wood did.

Until I have the water damage repairs under contract, I will feel unsettled. There’s no getting around that. We were planning on replacing the 37-year-old carpet in our bathrooms (why did the former owners do that?), the living room, entry, and dining room this month or next, but now that will be delayed until the other work is done.

I hate feeling unsettled, but it will have to be. I feel sort of good that I’ve been able to get to this point in getting things done. Two more months of this to go.

Meanwhile, in other news, today I sold the postcard collection we picked up years ago in North Carolina. One small dis-accumulation task accomplished.

home improvements

Household Work Takes Over

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Dateline: Thursday, October 12, 2023

Hopefully the synthetic materials will take less maintenance than the old wood did.

It is a time of home improvements at the Todd household. After years of delaying, I finally pulled the trigger on replacing the flooring on our upper deck. It was 36 or more years old, and had lots of deterioration. The men have been working on it since last Thursday, and will finish tonight—except for some final clean-up tomorrow. It will be nice to have a truly usable deck.

Just before the last railing sections were complete and final cleanup.

But, as they tore old boards away, at the edges of the house, the found water damage. A gutter wasn’t installed properly and was dropping most of its water on the deck. Two doorways are damaged. I called a mold inspector, who came out today. He tested those areas, did some air samples, and tested a dark spot on an outside wall that Lynda noticed just a few days ago. He’s pretty sure that has active mold, but we won’t get the report until tomorrow. If we do have to make repairs, it will mean removing built-in bookcases. I’m not looking forward to that.

Then, in the master bathroom, one interior wall is finished at an angle, creating a dead air space between it and the two exterior walls that come to a right angle. We’ve had water come in there, apparently, and in the basement beneath the dead air space we can see the floor boards up above, and they are rotten. The mold guy tested that area as well. Whether there’s mold there or not, for sure we’ll have to do some remediation work. I’m not looking forward to that either.

Also, I’ve decided to replace the old gutters and downspouts. They either weren’t attached properly years ago, or the roofers did something back in 2020 to slightly detach them from the house. I am looking forward to that, though not to the money it will cost me.

Consequently, I’m not sure how much writing I’ll get to do while I’m overseeing these projects, as well as getting ready for Thanksgiving at home. But who knows? Maybe I’ll find a way to adjust my writing schedule and still get things written.

environment, home improvements

I Guess I’m a Blackberry Farmer

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It takes a lot of picking to get enough blackberries for eating and baking. In order to pick enough, one must first farm.

Ever since early spring, I’ve been doing a good job of keeping up with yard work. Well, mostly a good job. With all the travel we did in February through May, I fell behind a little.

But I kept at it. Before the weather turned hot, I went out almost every weekday, weather permitting, and worked 30 to 60 minutes. Once the weather turned hot, I shifted my schedule to going out first thing upon rising in the morning and putting in the same amount of time. I had planned for blowing last year’s leaves out of the yard during the first week or two of September. But I found an efficient way to do it, and got it done in four days.

So I looked around at what I needed to do next. I looked at the blackberry vines at the front of our woodlot. Aha! The very thing that needs doing. After blackberry season, I allowed the vines to grow where they wanted to. I had two separate rows, plus a mass of vines behind the second row that had newly spring up. By early September, the first row (a shorty) was still separate, but all the rest was one big mass.

I had walked the area several times around the edges of the bushes/vines/whatever you call them. trying to figure out whether it would be better to cut rows either north-south or east-west. I finally decided to keep them north-south, as they were before. Around September 10 I got to work on them. I found it a little easier to do than I expected.

Until I got to the back. To make a long story short, I was able to trim the vines into five distinct rows. They aren’t as straight as I would have liked, and I’m not sure I’m done cutting them back. But I have five rows running north-south. The total length of the five rows combined in probably 80 feet or so. Further to the south is another mass of vines that I need to decide what to do with. I would have tackled them by now except for several days of rain preventing me from doing things where it’s wet, which these vines are.

So does 80 feet of vines cut into five rows make me a blackberry farmer, rather than a hobbyist who likes some free fruit? Perhaps. The proof will be in the harvest next year.

Harvest. Using that word, maybe I’ve answered my own question.

American Colonial History, Bible study, Documenting America, home improvements

Life Is Busy Right Now…

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Verly close to finishing the book. Individual chapters going up on Vella each week.

…so busy that I didn’t prepare a blog post for today. Yesterday I worked hot and heavy on Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution, completing two chapters and doing a little restructuring. I had a number of phone calls and messages to make regarding work to be done at the house and upcoming travel.

Consequently, I didn’t prepare a blog post ahead of time. And you get this filler post. I may come back and say a little more later. Right now I’m preparing for a City inspection of some work and our quarterly pest control treatment. Also need to call about a car in the shop, accommodations for our next trip, and something else that’s escaping me right now. Oh, yes, find out what’s the hold up on getting an estimate on some work we want done.

Possibly I’ll get back later to add something to this.

ETA, 3:01 PM Friday 22 September 2023

Well, today I finished DA:RUTR. I wrote the last two chapters this morning. I also edited Chapter 17, putting me more than halfway through the editing process. In addition, ten episodes are uploaded to Kindle Vella and scheduled to be published on Mondays and Fridays. I think that, by this time next week, all episodes will be edited and scheduled to be published.

It’s always a good feeling when you say “I’m done” with the first draft of a book. Better even when it is fully edited, and then when it’s published. At least the first part is done.

Now to figure out what to write next. Most likely I’ll move on the A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1.

home improvements, miscellaneous, reading

The Tree Came Down

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Here’s the view of the newly fallen tree, as it looks from my reading chair in the woods, off in the distance.

Summer is upon us in northwest Arkansas, both by the calendar and the weather. But our temperatures are hovering just below 90°F, or even in the upper 80s, for the daytime highs. Nightly lows are still in the 60s. That won’t last long. A forecast for next week shows us hitting 100 towards the end of the week.

But, I find it is cool enough to go to the sunroom and read around noon. That won’t last long either. My alternative place to read is a spot on our wood lot just south of the house. The lot is sloping, and finding a level spot to set a chair is a challenge. Last year I tried it but had a bad spot. Sitting wasn’t comfortable.

A little bit of enlargement. You can see how it’s at about a 45% angle. I haven’t walked down there yet to see what’s holding it up.

This year I chose another spot, just off the path to my compost pile. It’s not deep in the woods. In fact, when the sun comes around to due south and then a little to the west of south, the canopy of leaves becomes imperfect and it gets kind of hot. But, before 12:30 PM, when the sun is in the right spot and the shade is full, it’s quite pleasant there, even with the ambient temperature above 90.

The problem is, I find sitting in the woods distracting. I come out through the garage, walk the 40 or 50 feet down the path, put my coffee and book on the log I’m using as a table, set out my chair, and have a seat. I open whatever book I’m reading (currently C.S. Lewis’s Reflections on the Psalms), and read.

Except, I find it impossible to concentrate for long. I’m constantly looking up to see what is in the woods. Or to listen to whatever sound is about. Our street is little traveled and so doesn’t give off much noise. If a strong enough breeze is going, I can hear the trees swaying and rustling through the leaves. I don’t hear many critter sounds. Sometimes a squirrel will be dashing here or there perhaps a hundred feet from me. I will watch it for a while. A bird or two may fly through the woods, but birds I hear more than see.

I will take that walk down the hill soon. But I don’t think I’ll do much about it.

Anyhow, one day last week, I interrupted my reading to look into the woods. Off to the right and quite a way down the hill, but still on our lot (or just a few feet south of it), was a tree that was newly leaning, closer to horizontal than vertical. I knew this tree. It was one of three trees in the area where I had established a brush pile and a log pile. The trees were dead, but standing. One of these trees, about 6-inch diameter, had come down over the winter. I’ve slowly been cutting it to movable lengths and taking them down to the log pile.

This new one is at least 12-inches diameter. It sits, as I said, a few feet south of our lot line, but is falling in the direction of our lot. I can’t leave it how it is. In North Carolina they called this type of tree a “widow-maker”. So this will be another one I’ll have to clean up.

A 12-inch tree is too big to try to cut without a chainsaw, so maybe I can get a friend to come with his chainsaw and help me out. I want to keep the lot clean for when the grandkids come, so they can play on it without a lot of stuff to trip over. But that will have to wait until after blackberry season, which is now in full swing.

What’s the point of all this? The difficulty of concentrating, which might be a sign of aging? Enjoyable things seen in the woods? The extra work that an extra lot puts on you? I suppose any of those could be a subject to expand.

I was thinking, though, of how using our senses results in expanded observations. When did that tree come down? We had a windstorm, with a little rain, over Saturday-Sunday night. That might have been it. But, it could have come down sometime before that. I’ve been sitting in the woods off and on for about a month, and I don’t remember seeing it before. Had I not seen it, or was it a new casualty of the forces of nature?

I’m not sure how much we use all our senses. Sight. Hearting. Touch. Taste. Smell. Rarely, I think, do I take a moment to observe around us and evaluate the area with all five senses.

I’m trying to do a better job with this. Right now, Friday evening, I’m sitting in the living room. The TV is on in the background, providing sound. It has to compete with ringing in my ears, however. The sight factor is easy, and I won’t describe to you the combination of furniture, clutter, carpet, etc. that I see. No particular smell stands out from whatever the background smell is. I’m sipping cold water, which has a neutral but somewhat enjoyable taste.

As to touch, I’m in the recliner, laptop on my lap. The chair presses in on me, causing some pain in my slowly-recuperating left shoulder. It reminds me that I don’t much like this chair; something about the height of the arms and the way they press in. The “pillow” behind my head also is a bit too big.

Ah, using the senses. Time to get up and find something to exercise more fully my sense of taste. Peanut butter and jelly, perhaps? Or maybe half a grapefruit.

books, family, home improvements

One More Big Hole

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Here’s where they sat for over 20 years.

As I’ve posted before, my wife and I are slowly in the process of shedding possessions accumulated over the first 44 years of marriage. You would think that with the moves we made we would be lean in terms of stuff, but, alas, not so. When we went overseas our company paid to store our stuff so we didn’t have to get rid of anything. Now, being septuagenarians and knowing we will someday have to downsize, each possession is getting scrutiny. Does it bring us joy? Will we ever use it? Will we want to move it to whatever our next place is?

And here is the hole.

I’ve written before about some dis-accumulation we’ve done. Here’s a summary.

  • Dad’s tools. When Dad died in 1997, my brother and I split his tools between us, while my brother took all the hardware. My share, except for a very few I found uses for, sat in garages, unused, catching dust. It was in 2020 that I realized, “Do I really need six saws and eight planes?” Facebook Marketplace was my friend then, and I sold everything I didn’t see myself ever using.
  • They aren’t elegant to look at, but are obviously old. People like that.

    Mom’s books. In the 1930s and 40s, Mom accumulated books, some of them through book-of-the-month clubs, some through one-off purchases. Most of them were commonplace books with no sentimental value. Except they were Mom’s. I came to realize I never would read them, couldn’t keep them forever, and sold off about 800 of them. The last 120 or so went to thrift stores, with a couple figuratively stained by my tears.

  • And the “innards” aren’t splashy the way encyclopedias became—before they migrated to the internet.

    Dad’s Stars and Stripes. I’ve written about them before here and here, so I won’t go into it much. They are now in residence at the University of Rhode Island Library’s special collections, most likely in the inventory/curation process, waiting for scholars to pour over them.

  • Grandpa’s trunk. I also wrote about that not so long ago. The trunk Grandpa Oscar Todd brought with him when he emigrated from England to the USA is now at the home of a cousin, and much appreciated there.

So, what’s the new “hole” in our house, left from dis-accumulation?

  • Uncle Dave’s encyclopedias. These are a very nice, gently worn, 1900 set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. As our son urged us to do even more in anticipation of future downsizing, I listed them on Facebook Marketplace for a pretty good price. I had no action on them for a few weeks, then someone made an offer while we were out of town; I countered; a bargain was struck; and the transfer of money and books and bookcase happened on Saturday. The hole is in our entryway, which serves as an antique room.
A close-up of the covers. How they did encyclopedias in 1900.

The encyclopedias sat for many years (1950 to 1997) in the basement of the house I grew up in in Cranston, Rhode Island. Covered by a bedsheet, I found them one time in my teenage years, and had occasion to use them only once, in 1990 while visiting Dad. He said they were mine when he “croaked”.

I’m pretty sure they belonged to David Sexton, my grandmother’s uncle and the man I’m named after. He took my grandmother in when she was a single mother in a strange country and became a surrogate dad to my mom—or maybe a surrogate grandfather. He emigrated to the USA in 1887 and made his way to Providence in 1903. I suspect he bought the encyclopedias around the time of his arrival in Rhode Island.

A typical title page. Again, not splashy. Only a hole now because they belonged to Uncle Dave.

Our house here had the perfect place to display them. They took up little space and made a nice decoration for anyone entering the house. But are they something I would keep forever? I wish I could. When our son was here in January, he encouraged more dis-accumulation. My wife and I were at an impasse as to what to get rid of next, and as a result I decided these antique books would be next.

So they are gone. Even the bookcase, which was an antique of the same era, is gone. After confirming the sale, I wound up getting a full-price offer from another buyer. But, having made the bargain with the first buyer, I felt it had to go to them.

What more can I say? There is a hole in the entryway where they stood, and a little bit of a hole in my heart. But I have many other legacy books that belonged to Uncle Dave. Someday they will go the way of all earthly possessions, but not just yet.