And people think I’m a packrat

Son James has often said he is glad he didn’t inherit the packrat gene from me. Barb has hinted at similar thoughts on more than one occasion. I’m a long way from being a hoarder but I admit I keep things most people would throw away.

I heard this story over the weekend when visiting Idaho but SIL Julie blogged about it so I’m comfortable telling about a relative of hers:

The funniest find of the day was a small box I pulled off the top shelf of the pantry.  I opened it and there was wedding cake!  Very petrified wedding cake.  Their parents were married 64 years ago…

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6 thoughts on “And people think I’m a packrat

  1. This is not that unusual. Back in the day almost all wedding cakes were fruitcake and it was quite customary for the newlywed couple to save a piece of cake as a memento of the event.

    Most people were poor that long ago and they didn’t really have anything else to remember their wedding by.

    • I think everyone I am close to who has gotten married froze a piece of their wedding cake and ate it on their one year anniversary.

      But 60+ years? Wow!

  2. You never know when a decades-old piece of wedding cake might come in handy.

    On the other hand, I found some of that stuff when I was cleaning out our pantry a few years ago, and I discreetly threw it away. I do not anticipate a situation in which my wife will be asking me where that old wedding cake and that tattered old bouquet have got to (because she desperately needs them for some project or other). The fact that we’re married has been firmly established, requiring no supporting evidence as dehydrated desert food or crumpled flowers. If at some point in the future I become unable to remember that I married her, looking at dried cake most likely won’t help anyway.

  3. If you have any old stuff, and you have a historical society nearby, give a thought to future generations and make a donation. My Father AND my Mother were packrats, so as they said, I got a double dose. To settle their estates I’ve delivered stuff to the local public library, the local Salvation Army, the local Goodwill, and the local historical society. They are more than happy to receive old annual reports from the city, old school handouts that tell the parents when the polio vaccines would be given in the school auditorium, PTA directories, cafeteria menus, Boy Scout mailings, Church bulletins, anything that has anything to do with the old days in the city. Even old business cards from when the chi-chi downtown area was filled with stationery stores and appliance repair shops. When this ephemera is gone, it’s gone, and the leftists are free to make up whatever lie they want to.

    Oh, and family pictures? ON THE BACK, WRITE WHO THE PEOPLE ARE!!! I can’t tell you how many pictures I have that I and no one living today knows who they are anymore.

    Sorry. As my brothers left this all up to me I feel strongly about the whole matter.
    And get rid of junk and stuff that no one wants, it is a cruelty to those remaining.

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