WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND

What We Leave Behind
Material Possessions 

I have been cleaning out a lot of 'stuff' this week. A lot of it has been mine and a lot of it belonged to James. I am getting rid of a lot of stuff that has been accumulated over several years. James was not a hoarder such as you see on TV stories. He was neat and organized in what he had. I would rather call him a collector. James was a collector of many things. He had things that he had kept from years and years ago. He had a collection of arrow heads that he had found over the years. He collected knives and he had over 100 of them. He would put them on boards and display them. We laid them all out on tables in the living room and let each one pick which ones they wanted. Some were valuable but most he just liked the way they looked. We never went to Pigeon Forge without going to the Smokey Mountain Knife Works. It was nothing for him to stand and look in the cases for a hour and never buy a knife. He had to be in the right mood before he spent any money. He loved to collect guns of all different types. He would sit for hours sometimes and look at them on the internet before he would decided on one that he wanted. Then he would save his money after he found exactly what he wanted and get it. Thankfully he designated different people that he wanted to have them and they have all found a new home. He even put in his hand written funeral plans that he wanted to pay his son in law for his part in the funeral service with one of his guns. He also liked to buy guitars and still claimed the one that his mom bought him when he was 16 years old even though he had given it to Byron several years ago. He talked a lot about getting it refinished. Of course Byron, Matthew, Elizabeth and Jennifer all play the guitar so all the guitars got good homes. I am sure he had over 100 caps and several hats. You rarely saw James without a cap on. He kept old shotgun shells that had been shot because he reloaded them. I don't know how many hundreds of them he had. We won't even talk about the nuts and bolts and little pieces of things in cans and cups. He had collected books ever since we had been married and had shelf after shelf of them. He passed on his love of books to the kids and now their shelves are running over with their "inheritance". He had fishing stuff that he had collected for about 65 years. He had always fished in every creek and pond that he could find. One of his favorites when he was a kid was Babelays Pond on Babelay Road. He knew every place on Norris, Cherokee and Douglas to fish. He also liked to fish in the creek and the rivers. He loved Holston River and went often to Nancy's Ferry to fish. He carried a fishing rod in his truck all the time in case he saw a good spot to cast a rod. I hope when Matthew, David or Jonathan and whoever else ended up with the fishing stuff remembers Grandpa when they cast that rod or pull in a big fish. One of the things that bothered him the most was not being able to take his boat out to the lake. Matthew was able to go and help with the boat year before last but last year there was very little taking the boat out and fishing. But back to the topic of this post. After dealing with all of James things the past few months I have been thinking about my 'stuff' and decided I was going to do something about a lot of it now. Things that only I would ever have an interest in. If you remember last year when our church had the big sale I put most of my tea pots in it. Over 100 of them. I kept some that had a special meaning for me but the rest were just my collection that nobody else really wanted to have. I also like to collect table cloths. I don't know how many I have bought over the years but have them in almost every color. A lot of them I bought to use at church. This week I have gotten rid of lots of glass bowls and dishes and pots and pans. Christmas decorations that have been around for years. But the good things is Josh and Amanda are having a yard sale and I gave them all of it. Maybe they will get a little money out of it and somebody else get some use out of things that I no longer need. I also need to go through my clothes again. Who needs 40 skirts? Who needs 5 black skirts? That is what happens when you are a sale shopper. Just can't pass up that bargain. But remember the next time you decide to keep that little thing that you might need someday or that magazine that you might want to look at again think again and imagine someone else having to deal with all you leave behind.