wrote me a letter

[Long Run]

Who else has boxes of letters and cards from family/friends/significant others (past and present)? Anyone have strategies on what to do with these? Sort by type/importance/scan/toss?

[Guinevere]

I made a decision some time ago that unless the card or the sentiment was particularly special, or for a significant occasion, I would get rid of them all except for cards from the boys and love letters from my Swede.

Mostly it works. But believe me, one day no one is going to want to sort through all of that for you.

[Gob]

Not cards or letters, but I have every email exchange me and Hen made when we were courting.

(And boxes full of every single school book of the Hatch's.)

[Long Run]

one day no one is going to want to sort through all of that for you.

That's what got me going on this, even though I hope and expect that will be a long time yet . I am creating a digital "scrapbook" so most of the physical items can be eliminated, and similarly digitizing most photographs. But I'm struggling a bit with what to do with a lot of personal paper.

[Bicycle Bill]

I still have printouts of the conversation that went on back on the Cafe d'Artre when Katie Barefoot and I pranked everybody after our FTF at the State Fair in 2001.

-"BB"-

[Bicycle Bill]

That's what got me going on this, even though I hope and expect that will be a long time yet . I am creating a digital "scrapbook" so most of the physical items can be eliminated, and similarly digitizing most photographs. But I'm struggling a bit with what to do with a lot of personal paper.

My sister and I had a lot of stuff to go through/dispose when my mother passed away back in 2015.  She was a packrat and had saved all sorts of stuff; there were owner's manuals for products that had long since lived, died, and been consigned to the landfill.  There were other things like old cancelled checks and even a hand-written card file with the names and addresses of her customers from the 1960s when she sold Stanley products.  Almost all of it went into the shredder.

So speaking from experience, start winnowing through your stuff ASAP.  An added benefit is that you can review items that might contain personal information or potentially embarrassing things (like those pictures of yourself in full keg-stand mode at the college frat party, or those 'art' photos you took of the girl you used to date before you finally married the mother of your children), and you can make sure they are destroyed or otherwise disposed of.

-"BB"-

[BoSoxGal]

My poor cousin is slowly sifting through nearly 100 years of collected stuff from her mother, grandmother AND great grandmother, even - all pack rats. I feel so bad for her, watching her agonize over parting with someone else's life detritus. I would never want to inflict that on anyone. She's now determined to start weeding through her own piles, to spare her daughter the same fate.

I've been mostly a purger in my life; sometimes I experience twinges of sadness over things I discarded or donated, but largely not. More and more as I age I realize that life is NOW. How often do you - if ever - look at those old cards? Many people never even look at old pictures. Love letters are different, but most of that stuff - toss it! Memories are in people, not in things. When the memories are gone from your head, the things won't bring them back anyway - working with Alzheimer's patients has taught me that much.

[Guinevere]

one day no one is going to want to sort through all of that for you.

That's what got me going on this, even though I hope and expect that will be a long time yet . I am creating a digital "scrapbook" so most of the physical items can be eliminated, and similarly digitizing most photographs. But I'm struggling a bit with what to do with a lot of personal paper.

Scan what is important to you, and keep a few physical copies around if you want that as well. But from the experience of clearing out Mom's house, my sister and I still are dealing with boxes and boxes and boxes of paper, photos, and slides, please do as much as you can to streamline. Plus can tell you we didn't have time to read it all, or look through it all. Some of that we are doing now, but as my sister said, she has boxes of her own photos and papers she should be managing, and it's a pita to be doing Mom's as well.

[Big RR]

I plan to do that one day when I have some time, but the sad fact is unless it's a priority, I will never have the time because it is a task I will not enjoy doing.

My other was a bit of a pack rat (I even found a stash or unredeemed Raleigh cigarette coupons, but ultimately my father and I just threw things out unreviewed, figuring if we never used it before, we had no need for it now.

Honestly, whatever I have is likely of interest to me alone, so I hope my kids do the same--I'm not saving it for them (those things are in other boxes and files), but no one really needs my Masters thesis, or reprints of my few publications, advertising brochures for some seminars I gave, etc.; even if I did winnow them out, the rest would be trashed.

The only thing I have a soft spot for is photos--I have a couple of big boxes of photos from my parents which I am sorting through--I have scanned them but am keeping the photos and negatives in sorted physical files by dates and people as best I can (I prefer the original to a digital scan). The kids may dump them when I am gone, but then they may delete the digital files as well.

Speaking of ditching embarrassing things, an elderly (90+) couple on my street died with in a year of each other; they had no kids or close family to speak of with the exception of some cousins I never met who lived in the Midwest. A firm was conducting a house sale and one of my friends bought a dresser which we brought to my garage to clean. Taped to the bottom of one of the drawers we found an envelope of nude photos of her and her sister (ho I never met but saw in photos hanging in the house) at the beach--they appeared to be in their early 20s so I guess this was in the 30s--the husband was a professional photographer (one of those with a portrait studio), and the photos were "arty" with dancelike poses and the waves in the background. The problem is, we know of no family (and calling up and saying "do you have any nude pictures of your great aunt" or whatever wouldn't be a fun conversation) and I don't just want to give personal photos of that type to a historical society, so I don't know what to do with them.

[Long Run]

BigRR, it is these decision points that halt or slow the process down. On the one hand, you were never supposed to have the art photos, so you can just toss them out. On the other hand, you are now the steward of some art work and you should see that it ends up in the right place.

As for the big job of culling through everything, fortunately for letters/cards/photos/etc., I've developed rules for items to save, items to toss, items that I don't know what to do with yet. Then, the plan is to take it in bite size pieces, doing 10 or 20 minutes at a time. Sounds good in theory, but check back in with me in a couple of months to see if I've made any progress!

[Guinevere]

Will do. I'm taking a week of vacation in April, in part to deal with Mom's papers and my own as well. But will the work actually, get done? Stay tuned . . .

[kristina]

I still have a dresser-full of the late spousal unit's photographs, proof sheets and negatives. And two flat files of prints and old posters he collected. I finally sold all the cameras two years ago, for a tiny fraction of what they originally cost, but at least they've gone to people who (I hope) will use them.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I had a shoe box full of letters from an old girlfriend from when we wrote to each other when I shuffled off to Buffalo for college.
('77-'78). The releationship ended long before I got rid of the letters. Forgot about them for a very long time.

[Econoline]

The problem is, we know of no family (and calling up and saying "do you have any nude pictures of your great aunt" or whatever wouldn't be a fun conversation) and I don't just want to give personal photos of that type to a historical society, so I don't know what to do with them.

Easy. Put them back in the envelope and tape the envelope to the bottom of a drawer in a dresser in your house, and let your kids figure it out.

[Lord Jim]

This reminds me of an old 60s song...

[rubato]

I just got through recycling and shredding several file boxes of old financial and presonal records &c. Feels good. More room.

1 more major push and I'll be rid of a burden of useless stuff.

I'm also distributing a lot of original artwork that will never make it back on the limited walls of this house. (And many suitable walls are in rooms with too much direct sunlight to think of putting original art there)




yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

1 more major push and I'll be rid of a burden of useless stuff.

So would your wife.

[dales]

[rubato]

Guin;

So whats keeping you and your rutabaga from getting married? You've been together for a long time.

(A friend's parents just got hitched after being together for > 50 years. Hippies!)


yrs,
rubato

[Guinevere]

Good lord, that is a deeply personal question Rube.

Let's just say that I'm allergic to marriage, and leave it at that.