The New Truck, the Garage, and JUNK

I think I told you that Max called me few weeks ago to let me know I had a new truck. It's a great old but new-to-us truck. We seem to really need one for here.

There's just one big problem with it (well, besides needing an elevator to get into it) - it won't fit into the garage.

Dad put some fantastic floor to rafter cabinets on the back wall of the garage. Even when the front bumper of the truck is resting against the cabinets, the garage door will only go half-way down. One day last week we were predicted to have possible thunderstorms, and the weather radio was blaring hourly about severe thunderstorms right on the Kentucky-Tennessee state line. So I pulled the truck into the garage and lowered the door as much as it would go.

Our next-door neighbor, Larry, is so very nice. He was sitting at the table eating supper and noticed the door. He got up from his supper and came over to help me with the door because he thought it had gotten stuck. I told him the problem, grinning rather foolishly. He walked to the back of the garage and looked at the truck bumping just into the cabinets; then he walked back to the front and looked at the garage door resting halfway down the tailgate. Then he shook his head, looked at me and said, "I'm going back home and finishing supper." He and Julia probably got as much of a laugh out of it as I did.

Our decision is we prefer the truck in the garage more than we prefer the cabinets. So this weekend Max started working on emptying the cabinets so we can dismantle enough of them to get the truck in the garage. This is where the junk comes in. After Max got all the stuff out of them and sitting on the garage floor, we simply stood there in amazement looking at the crap Joe had stuffed into those cabinets.

To be trashed

The heater is brand new and ours.
The rest of the stuff is to be gone through.

Larry came over and got the guards for the table saw he traded me the lathe for. He didn't want anything else. Uncle Charles came over and got a few things. These are pictures of some of the things that were left after Max had already filled a garbage bin of stuff.

On the left are a vacuum cleaner from, what, 1950? An electric typewriter from when, the 60's? A compressor from a Chevy air conditioner. Battered hubcaps. A radio/sound system from something that's at least 40 years old. The legs from an old TV tray. On the right is a myriad of "stuff."

Now remember, these are pics from what was left after 2 people came and got stuff, and Max filled a huge, wheeled garbage bin.  I suppose for quite a while I'll be shaking my head over the stuff my parents kept in this house. I'll be cursing them, too, but that's another issue.

I get the whole living in the Great Depression thing, but isn't there a thing of taking things too far? That vacuum cleaner was the 2nd broken one Joe had kept. He's going to use the air conditioner compressor for parts for what? He's going to use the electric typewriter without a cord?

Seriously, folks, if you are doing this to your children, get a clue and get over it. Throw the crap away. Last week I cleaned out the "gardening cabinet" and threw away a broken garbage disposal and a huge thing of beef jerky from 2004.  When you can't remember what you've got, you've got too much, and your heirs don't want to deal with it.

We were really hoping to save the cabinets and move them over, but we don't think that's going to work. Max had to take the truck back to Memphis this time to get it inspected and registered. So I've got the Kia for 3 weeks with no problem of getting it in the garage.