Nobody wants our stuff. Face it. Maybe you’re looking at them right now — the nicknacks and tchotchkes that are collecting dust on the mantle, piano or bookcase.
No one wants it. Not the dishes, not the furniture, not even the antique rocking chair, and especially not the figurines.
Millennials and GenXers just aren’t that sentimental about our “valuables” and even if they wanted some of it, they don’t have the space. Besides, their collectibles come in a digital format and they can store it all on a flash drive.
Thrift stores and estate sales are loaded with boomer cast-offs but they are just collecting dust. Still. They were collecting dust when we owned them and they are doomed to continue collecting dust. Go to any yard or estate sale in an older established neighborhood and you can see for yourself that our stuff is going begging. Lladro porcelain? Big deal. Even the people who know what it’s worth don’t want any more of it. A vintage Ridgeway grandfather clock? Where would anyone put it? An Apple watch does so much more. Beautiful sets of dishes, and when I say set, I mean service for 12? No one is feeding 12 people anymore and if they had 12 people over, it would be for finger food.
Look up some of these things on eBay and you’ll see acres of listings posted by desperate boomers. Their best customers may be other boomers who just can’t give up the hunt for more treasures.
I don’t care what Marie Kondo says. Holding on to what sparks joy isn’t really generating much joy and the next generations are getting absolutely no joy from baby boomer possessions.
At the risk of sounding like I’m encouraging arson, certainly one option is to put it all in a big bonfire. Or you could take it to the landfill, where the bonus is that you get to meet the most interesting people there. These options make more sense than waiting for millennials to come around and decide that these treasures are worth keeping. Won’t happen in our lifetime.
Back then to a bon fire.
Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.
Retirement reduced my exposure to annoying situations, but it’s hard to avoid them completely. I recently played golf with a woman who announced she was extremely sensitive to sounds. She had rabbit ears and could hear even the tiniest whisper, requiring absolute silence when it was her turn to play. Even the rustling of a potato chip bag was terribly disturbing to her.
In the early 80’s, I was playing with the Bernie Pearl Band and one night we opened for Smokey Wilson at The Music Machine out on Pico on Los Angeles’ Westside. Smokey was a real showman; he fronted a 7 piece band with a horn section and sported a powder blue 3-piece suit with a cowboy hat to match. He’d hit the stage after his band warmed up the audience with two or three tunes.
Oh yeah, assisted living is most likely in all of our futures, but it’s already clear that it won’t be your father’s assisted living. Baby boomers are playing by a different set of rules and the assisted living industry is already planning, or should I say bracing for the changes.
You are the voice in my head
My first bicycle was a clunky green thing with a heavy frame and fat tires that were always low on air. The pedals clanked against the chain guard as they rotated and it shook and rattled whenever I picked up even the slightest bit of speed. It had no gears, no style, no anything. The only good thing about it was that when I clothes pinned cards to the over-sized tires, it made a loud and satisfying motorcycle sound. That, and the fact I never-ever not even once had to worry about someone stealing it.
