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I'VE WRAPPED UP A JOB of momentous proportions, Dear Reader! It's one that I have never, ever done before and will never, ever do again. After all---I've only ever had one set of parents, and they only ever lived in one house for the final fifty-one years of my dad's life and fifty-two years of my mom's. Yesterday and the day before, in Tidewater Virginia's sweltering heat, three of my siblings, my yard man and I relieved that house of its burden of STUFF.





In the attic, we tramped through more than half a century's worth of dust to carry antique boxes and bags to the front porch, where their contents could be perused, sorted, argued over, laughed at,* reminisced upon, pitched in the dumpster, loaded on a truck bound for the Goodwill store, or maneuvered into one or another sibling's personal stash.



After the attic, there was the basement (I'm ruing my lack of before-and-after photos--they'd be impressive!) Thank goodness for two brothers and my yard man to deal with the overwhelming array of tools! lumber! plumbing equipment! plumbing parts! woodworking equipment! appliances! materials and equipment for chair-caning, spinning, weaving! materials and equipment for the mending of almost any household object you could name! and...honestly, that basement was so clotted with stuff, I can't even enumerate all the categories under which it could all be listed!



That dumpster, which looked so vast when delivered to the site on Tuesday morning, didn't look so more-than-adequate by the end of Day One.

And that's where I'm going to leave you, Reader Dear--at the end of Day One (Tuesday evening, as you might know it). Because my yard man and I arose at four-thirty that morning. When we arrived at the old home place just ahead of the dumpster, my siblings were already hard at work and the degree of heat was still acceptably pleasant.



But by the time we decided to call it quits and take ourselves to a restaurant for supper, we were one hot, sweaty, filthy bunch! And it makes me tired just thinking about how tired we were!

So I'll have to tell you about Day Two on
Day Two of the Telling.
Is that okay with you,** Reader Dear?


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*Laughable

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**(Oft-expressed query on both Day One and Day Two, as in:
"I'm going to take this [desk accessory, hat of dad's, stack of old maps...]. Is that okay?"


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