junk, junk, ...more junk.....

This is the story of the end of one storage unit and the beginning of another, much smaller unit.

636, a 10x30 unit.... that's BIG

Where did Lillian keep it all? I have to ask myself, because we started out in a ranch home with NO basement,..... I am mystified...as she had collected the majority of the stuff while living in that home.  Including tons of stuff from her sister Mae, who passed aways in 1972. Anyway, two basements and one temporary storage unit later,.... I moved out of a home with a large basement, and put most of the basement stuff into a storage unit.... 10 feet by 30 feet, climate controlled.... and FULL, with an aisle down the middle.  The photo above is the nearly empty unit.
That's right, what you see, fading into the darkness back there, is 1/3 of what once was.  I have another 1/3 of it in my house -so that's a MESS.  

This is NOT hoarder stuff,.... if you think that then you would never understand what my mother was trying to do.  Ask anyone who visited the house in Des Plaines, and they will tell you -they NEVER saw all of this stuff!!!  No one, especially myself, had any idea of the scope of it..... and I have to tell you that we threw out enough stuff to have filled the 10x30 unit back in 1987......  It is, indeed, incomprehensible......

7 hours of hard work, with a few pauses.... and it was empty.

The price of moving that stuff to a 10x10 unit? A very sore body,...I was in pain and struggling to walk after I stopped working hard and sat down for a few minutes.....  And I am saving some money.....  Meanwhile, I have a house full of boxes to deal with.... there is so much that I do not want.... I am looking into some options,...among them an estate sale, a garage sale, or a spot in an "antiques" mall in my town. My goal? to get that storage unit cleaned out by,...oh, let's say tax day 2018.

There is some really interesting stuff there, and some cool unique items.  I may share photos at a later date.... 

Among the finds: a letter addressed to my father -postmarked in 1929! at an address I was not aware of.... and whatever was there in 1929, it is not what we see today (on Asbury Ave. in Evanston).  If anyone knows what year the greenhouses on Mt. Prospect Road were built -please tell me!  
Other interesting finds include some very unusual and novel items that were gifted to my parents over their 26 years together.  I have 4 Mr. Newport drinking glasses.  A Snoopy and Woodstock glass rootbeer mug.... a lot of memorabilia from the greenhouses,,... yard tools that belonged to my dad (real wooden handles)... and a rather old -antique- push mower...

sharpen the blades and it is operable!

As you can see in the storage unit photo above I have old-fashioned "strap" lawn chairs.... I believe I have a total of 6 of those.  I have an antique "typing table" which has little wheels and fold down sides..... A box containing an old barbecue grill and tools for cooking out....  I cannot even explain or list everything that I found yesterday.....

At home? I have a ton of glassware, dishes, and myriad tchotchkes - dust collectors to display in your home......   My parents entertained,... and by entertained, I mean that we had frequent visitors, and a really big Christmas party every year until 1964.... I was a wee tot then, but my parents had been having such celebrations for many years before I was ever thought of..... 

People always wanted to bring a gift, so my parents collected a lot of unique and sometimes unusual items.  A collection of salt & pepper shakers,.... a can of fried grasshoppers (thrown in the trash in 1987, and it was very old then!) ..... interesting hats, cookout aprons, and a variety of the aforementioned tchotchkes.  

Myself, I have all of my vinyl lps, and a good collection of board games for all ages,.... legos, Lincoln Logs..... all of my original cassette tapes that were well used in my first car's cassette deck....  A shitton of vhs tapes, and I still have a player.... a huge collection of family photos,.... home movies but no working projector.....a Singer sewing machine from the 1940's with a broken leg....   A beautiful card table and the 4 chairs -all in splendid condition, which were a gift to my parents from my Aunt Elsie and Uncle Pete, way back before I was born.....  4 fiberglass snack trays that were a gift to my parents in the 1960's -I still use them.

Anyway, that is my life right now.... boxes everywhere, and the uncertainty of what, exactly, I will do with it all......  plus a full-time job........it's a good thing I live alone......

a narrow townhome, 3 floors,... appx 1,300 sq ft including basement