In 1981, I bought a 100# sack of Hydrocal, to replicate a stucco finish on a 1" scale dollhouse I built for a client. More on this later.
Also in 1981, I married a schoolteacher, who worked in Special Ed. A connection began to form. More on this later.
One of the general characteristics of one who is or aspires to be a model railroader is the absolute propensity to view every object one comes across in terms of its potential use in the model railroad realm. I have been a disciple of this belief since 1953, when I got my first AF train set. Scraps of wood too small to burn may be suited for that custom piece of benchwork not yet envisioned, or that clear plastic DISPOSABLE cookie container may become the ideal trainshed roof. Don’t forget the chunks of wire insulation stripped off while wiring in a new doorbell: it could eventually become an HO scale hose, or irrigation pipe, or defective air line, just right for that scrap pile by the eventual RIP track. Valuable stuff. As time passes, the accumulation of treasure gradually increases in a non-linear, exponential fashion, but at a pace slow enough that the collector lulls himself into a state of unconscious denial. It becomes the norm, as containers filled with items (unsorted, of course) increase in number. More on this later.
Schoolteachers, especially the Special Ed types (and I am generalizing here) suffer from a similar malady but at a lower level of intensity. But they do have it. In her (I’d better insert OUR here) collection are mimeograph masters of almost every math, science, social studies, spelling, punctuation, grammar, whatever, worksheet ever devised by humankind. I think the mimeograph machine went extinct by 1979, but that is not the point. There may be a use someday, and that is the connection. There also may be a use someday for the trinkets, and pocket games, and small toys, and old textbook samples, and new
LOL! I thought I was a pack rat non-pareils (including Portland cement vs. Hydrocal) and had to suffer the agonies of ruthlessly, tearfully throwing out (I couldn’t give it away) not only my collection of possibly useful detritus but some actually high quality sheets and strips of lumber (we moved not 5 blocks but almost 300 miles). But you receive my accolades and I bow to your life-long achievement!
Yah, rub it in. I’m starting to go through the throw-away process right now. Threw out about 14 lengths of old Atlas Fiber tie flex track, and just barely stopped at stripping the frogs and points from 3 of the 6 Mantua switches. My wife of 40 years only stopped trying to cure me of the P.R .syndrome about 10 years ago. Guess she just gave up. Right now, I’m scanning my old paper files nto the computer. Actually managed to throw some of the paper away without scanning, too. I mean, who needs a schematic for an old radio control reciever that combines an old RK-61 Gas Tube and a CK-722 transistor, anyway. I broke the tube about 30 years ago, and I lost track of my CK-722 I don’t know when. And that transistor cost me $4.98 back in 1963. That was almost 3 hours pay for me then.
And some of those old Varney Zamac panels were warpped, anyway.
Maybe I am just different but I really do try to get rid of unneeded stuff. Best advice is to start building the layout (once you build the base you can get rid of the rest of lumber). Make hard decisions on what you really intend to run (yes it is hard and I had to do it years ago when I got rid of most of my MDC stuff as not detailed enough and the newer RTR is more detailed than I could do)).
I found a 30 year old shoe box filled with 12-inch long plastic tubes that had once held rolls of copier paper. And another one with umpteen 4-inch wide adding machine paper rolls. All intended to be flat car loads. I put them back in the box still waiting for those flat cars.
When I accepted my employers invitation to look into retirement, I left behind a couple pounds of maazine clippings that contained various schematics as well as adds that showed manufacturing building and machinery that might have had applications in modeling, as well as a small locker filled with a perforated packing paper from almost a year of deliveries from Digi-Key. The paper expands like some of the mesh products used for scenery base, and I was looking to use it that way The paper is somewhat water resistant.Also several small boxes of component samples. Could have used some of those small chips, especially the White LEDs. Wish I could have taken some of the tools, especially the nice Fluke 187 DMM and the Tektronics 760 Scope. As it was, It took me most of the three days I had to clear out my personal stuff and say the goodbyes.
Show me a real model railroader who isn’t a packrat, and they’ll make it into the “Guiness Book of Records”. I’ve collected enough stuff since I retired to build a room-sized layout, and I haven’t started yet.
Been there - done it. But in my last move I decided to bite the bullet and toss every unopened box from my prevoius move 13 years earlier - and now I can’t find my one and only bowling trophy!!
I’m in the process of moving from Chicago to Traverse City Michigan. I have forty boxes of books that fill five sets of bookshelves that I have moved three times now because my wife is going to read them all some day. Two moves ago I threw out a box that had been on a shelf in the guest room for six years unopened. 25 years later I asked my wife if she remembered the box and she said yes. I asked what was in it and she said she didn’t know. I then told her it had departed 25 years ago and caught the kind of wrath only someone married will understand. My snappy comeback was, Well in the last 25 years you have never once said where is such and such so the stuff is gone". Now she counts all the books. If I outlive her they will be in the trash the following week.
Believe me, I understand the wrath part. But I don’t understand whatever possessed you to mention that box you threw out[:O]. I’m spending the day cleaning up/out the office mentioned in my original post. It’s a good time as she’s currently in the hospital, sedated and on ventilator (long story, severe breathing issues). Too much odd stuff to list, but I did get brave enough to throw out the “keepsake” match box from our wedding reception hall (1981). Think I will EVER mention it to her? Gary