Downsizing

Just some of my rainbow coalition shirts - more than I'll ever wear the rest of my life

Well folks, I bit the bullet this morning and returned to some more downsizing.  This time is was my suits (which I no longer need, not working at the bank anymore) and pants (that no longer fit me).  

I'll be honest, it hurts to say goodbye to anything linked with my past.  The suits?  I'll never wear them again.  Besides, the waist on the pants is 32 inches.  I don't know what happened but I'm a 34 inch waist now.  I weigh the same (well, sort of) but the flab has shifted.  Gravity rules in the end you know.  First the flesh starts shifting then eventually the bod ends up in the ground, one way or another.

Old suits - oh the stories these suits could tell if they could talk - lots of history here folks!

I saved one dark suit to be buried in (or burned, whatever whoever decides when I depart this planet).  I did keep on suit jacket just in case I decide to be cool someday and wear something different than my denim jacket when I go out. 

I also put out a lot of my pants that no longer fit me (the waist thing again).  Plus, they all have pleats and pleats are out (this year anyway).  

I was going to take the said clothes down to one of the thrift stores in Rehoboth but it's such a hassle carrying the box in and the thrift store are so choosy down here.  I've had to take my donations back in the past.  I think it's a space problem.  Everything I donate is in excellent condition but space is limited in these thrift stores.  

Ron, Ron, Ron - why do you need so many shirts?

I have given my clothes to the Purple Heart Pickup in the past and that's what I'm going to do with these clothes.  I just call them and arrange a pickup.  They will send their truck by at a prearranged date and pick up my box of donations from my porch.  Very easy, I don't even have to answer the door.  

Progress folks, one step at a time.  Maybe a baby step but still, one step.  

A New Thrift Store In Town

The American Veteran's Thrift Store - first day of business

Bill and I visited the newest thrift store in town.  It's called the Veteran's Thrift store.  Not a real imaginative name I admit.  

Here in Gayberry Rehoboth beach and its environs (Lewes and Milton) we have a plethora of thrift stores.  Loads of them.  It's obvious because we have a large retiree population.  When us old folks die (there I go again), our relatives generally don't want our leavings unless it's cash.  Quite often the homes of the deceased that go up for sale say "furnished." 

I know for a fact that my nieces and one nephew and many grand nieces and grand nephews don't want anything from their old gay uncle except maybe the cash.  I don't plan on leaving a lot of cash behind but there may be some.

Since moving to LSD (Lower Slower Delaware) in 2007, I've been reluctantly departing with some of my "stuff."  I admit it is hard to part with the things I've accumulated over the past 72 years.  Funny thing though, once that formerly treasured possessions are out of the house, I haven't missed on of them.  That tells you something.

Bill is very fond of taking first time visitors to Casa Tipton-Kelly to my "Media Room" down in our beautifully finished basement and showing them all my "stuff", obviously hoping to shame me into getting rid of it.  I admit making choices of who and what to expel from Casa Tipton-Kelly is probably some of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make in my life.  I am a repressed hoarder.  There…..I've said it.  

My "Media Room" (my shame)

So today we visited this new thrift store.  It's convenient, just down the road from Casa Tipton-Kelly.  And it is open Sunday.  In fact it is open seven days of the week.  How about that?  Unlike the other thrift stores that are only open five days (closed Mondays).  Also this one has decent hours, 8 am in the morning instead of 10 am which is bad when traveling on Route One, especially in the summertime.  This thrift store gets it.  And they're getting my stuff. Starting tomorrow.

P.S.
Of course I did leave the thrift store today with a purchase…..beads for the upcoming Bloggerpalooza.  Hey, why not?

Bloggerpalooza beads

Bill Dogged

Bill trying to not get run over by a lady in her go cart

Wow, was that ever a negative posting I did yesterday?  I do have to offset that with something either beautiful or funny.  I think I'll go with funny today.

This morning Bill and I traveled up Rt. 1 to the old historic town of Milford, Delaware.  Actually, I think all of the towns of Delaware are "old historic towns."  We don't have many new towns.  In fact, I can't think of one.  Well, anyway so we head on up to Milford to check out the Salvation Army thrift store that our friend Bob C. has been telling us about.  Bill and I like to troll thrift stores on Saturday mornings so we thought we would see if the Milford Salvation Army thrift store was worthy enough to be added to our list.

Well, the short answer is "no."  It's great for clothing. We saw a lot of Hispanic families in there this morning replenishing their children's wardrobes.  By the way, ever notice how Hispanic children never scream or cry like our little American white and black children.  Apparently whining children is a uniquely American phenomena.  Either the Hispanic children are naturally well behaved or their parents are careful with their children when out in public.  I think the latter is the reason.  Too many American parents take leave of their parental responsibilities once they're out in public.  I'm not condemning, just stating my experience.  It is the rare parent who has well behaved children in public.  Uh oh, there I go being negative again.

This thrift store had a lot of "stuff" and it WAS clean but did have that Salvation Army musty smell.  Maybe the smell was from all those used clothes hanging on the racks.  I doubt that the Army had their washers working overtime cleaning them.

I did manage to find a few things (like I need anything else).  One was one of those jester porcelain masks that I am so fond of.  I got that baby for a couple bucks.  That will go with my collection on my bedroom wall.  The other thing I found was two books called "Your Story, A Guided Interview Through Your Personal & Family History."  These are blank books with questions  about your personal history.  How cool!  This is a good start to writing my autobiography which I've been planning on doing for the last forty years.  Bout time I started don't you think?  They only cost $1.99 each so I got one for me and one for Bill. He won't fill it out so I'll just ask him questions and fill it out for him.  Very cool.

So you're probably wondering where is the funny part to this posting?  Check out the picture on the top.  That's Bill being tailgated by a Jabba the Hut woman on her go cart.  Oh how that drives Bill crazy when he goes to Walmart and he has to dodge all the fatties on their wheelies.  I just had to take this picture for the record.  Every time Bill moved she was just inches behind him.  I love it!  Bill, not so much.

More good stuff tomorrow.  I'll try to keep my negative blog postings down to no more than one a week.  I just had to post my screed yesterday to get it out of my system.  If I keep that stuff bottled up in me it just makes me depressed and not wanting to do anything.  There is a lot more to life than my little minor issues. For instance, we just had another house in our development go up for a sherif's sale.  There are more lives ruined, so sad.

Another one bites the dust - the latest home in our development to go to sherif's sale

Trolling the Thrift Shops

All Saint's Parish Thrift Shop Dewey Beach, DE

Bill and I have a new addiction, trolling the thrift shops.  I'll blame our good friend Bob C. for this latest addiction.  


Now one might ask, do two old gay guys who have been together for almost a century need anything else in their household?  That would be a good question.  In fact, if anything, we need to get rid of a lot of our 'stuff' like my blogger friend Mark H. of Harrisburg has been so diligently doing these past months.  Actually, I have been dumping a lot of our excess stuff at our favorite thrift store for several months now including a bathroom scale which we just bought last week that reads my weight wrong.  I know I only weigh 163 pounds but this damn scale says I weigh 169 pounds.  Just goes to show you can't trust the quality of all products made in China.  There is no way I weigh 169 pounds. 


So we headed our early this Saturday morning to hit each of the thrift stores on Rt. 1 beginning in Dewey Beach, then Rehoboth Beach and ending in Lewes.  Lots of thrift stores down here in LSD with all of us old retired folks.  Lots of Guatemalans to pick up the bargains.  Hey, I'm glad to help.  By the way, for some reason I can't explain our Hispanic population is mainly Guatemalans.  


So here is the pictorial Tour of the Thrift Stores on this cloudy Saturday morning

It looks like something illicit is going on here

Do I need another painting?

Bill's going in for the kill in the electronics section

"Please take  us home with you!"

Knick knacks, remember them?  Your Mom used to load up the shelves with them.

Ladies who have been around the block a few times (one obviously had a good time and the other is somewhat the worse for wear)

Chairs for that next group therapy session

The Beebe Medical Center Thrift Store - canes,walkers, bedpans

Impressive display - a decorator's touch is evident

Can you tell I have a soft spot of Teddy Bears?  I still have all mine

I almost took this one home (but I couldn't figure how to smuggle it past Bill)

Bill hits pay dirt!

Sure, they weren't even open at 10:45 am - we didn't go in

The New Life Thrift Store - a consortium of churches - has the biggest selection

Lots of turnover at New Life Thrift - in and out all day

"I need some loving."

Encore Thrift Store - my favorite - where I make all my deposits

Encore Thrift has the theatrical flair

Ready for Easter!

My take today - my favorite Platzgraff bowls, a crystal single serving dish and two biographies that just came in -  today was a success!

Books

Yesterday I made three trips to the new thrift shop open by Clear Space Productions. All three trips were made with boxes of books. One box I offered to help a friend and pick up and deliver his box of no longer wanted books. He doesn’t have the space to store them anymore. That encouraged me to finally start going through my books and make the hard decision as to what I no longer want to keep. I’ve been collecting books ever since I started to read books. I always wanted a library with walls of books. The first books I read I checked out of the Downingtown Library. I remember how comforting it was to browse through the library, looking for books I wanted to read. Back in those days (The Fifties), one had a library card. The books were checked out for two week intervals. If it took you longer to read the book (which it didn’t with me) you could extend your borrowing period. It didn’t take me long to fill up my library card. I felt so proud when I filled up one library card and the librarian had to issue me a new library card. I filled up many library cards during my elementary school years.

Over the years I have collected thousands of books. My first collections were paperback books. When I got a real job making real money, I joined the Book-of-the-Month Club (I don’t know if they even exist anymore.) Then I started to seriously collect books, thus building one book at a time that Wall of Books. When I built my home in Pennsylvania in 1981, I had built in bookcases in the living room. It didn’t take me long to fill up those bookcases. Bill persuaded me to part with most of my thousands of paperback books and I agreed. For the twenty five years we lived in Pennsylvania I finally had my own library. Then we moved.

Now I had to move thousands of heavy books. The moving company charged by the pound. This was going to be an expensive proposition moving all these books. It was an expensive proposition. I moved the books to my new home in Delaware. I don’t have a built in bookcase in my Delaware home. In fact, I don’t even have a separate living room which I could call “the library.” The books sat in their moving boxes until Bill started to unpack them last summer and put them in temporary bookshelves in the basement that he built. I had also purchased two unpainted bookcases (which I have yet to paint.) I will fill those new bookcases with the books I decide to keep.

Did I want another Wall of Books? Do I want a library? No, not really. Not at this point in my life. While I still enjoy a good book (I always have one of two books I’m in the process of reading – one at my bed and the other in my bathroom), I don’t need the Library. Thus, it was time to make the Big Decision. Which books are to go and which books are to stay?

Last summer I had began the process of “debooking” by offering many of my Time-Life series of books to Juan, my DirecTV repairman and former neighbor. He has two young children who would benefit from holding a real book with a lot of pictures instead of getting all of their information from the Internet. Yet, as many books as I gave to Juan, there were those books that I couldn’t give to him. His children wouldn’t be interested in these books. Many of those books wouldn’t be appropriate for youngsters such as Juan’s young son and daughter who hadn’t yet reached their teen years.

Thus it was with happiness and relief when a good friend told me that he and his partner were opening a new thrift store. The new thrift store is called Clear Space Productions Thrift Store. Clear Space Productions is a local theatrical company that trains local high school students in theatrical productions. Because of the economy, donations to their worthy cause have dropped. My friend’s partner noticed that other thrift stores in the area do very well. Thus he decided there was a market for another thrift store, especially a “theatrical” thrift store. And he was right. There is a definited niche in the local market for a "theatrical" focused thrift store.

I feel good that now I have a good home for all of these books that I have accumulated over the past 45 years. These books will enjoy a renewed life with their new owners. Again, someone will find comfort turning the pages of a real book. Maybe some of them will even find a home in a home library. Now if I can just find a home for the hundreds of LP albums that have been sitting in unopened boxes in my basement.