A couple weeks ago, Bobby tagged me with this purse contents meme.

Here are the directions:

1. Dump the contents of your handbag in a pile.
2. Take a photo of your handbag and the contents.
3. Be brave and ’splain to your fellow bloggers what lurks inside the handbag.
4. Tag others who might want to embarrass themselves.
5. Answer these questions:
Describe the contents of your handbag.
What’s the most important thing in your handbag?
What’s the most embarrassing thing in your handbag?
What’s the smallest thing in your handbag?
Is there anything illegal in your handbag?

So, I was tempted to empty out my pockets (the man-equivalent of a purse), but instead I’ll just take a picture of something on my desk and do that instead. Yes, I’m totally breaking the rules, but you’re used to that by now.

Let me break the rules again by tagging people before I do mine. I hereby tag the following: Doug who probably won’t do it but I’ll fruitlessly try tagging him anyway, Pete or Pete, Teeni, and JD.

So, here is an item on my desk:

My grandfather made that. He also made a whole bunch that we used to place outside come spring. We don’t do that anymore. Since he’s no longer with us, he can’t make anymore to replace any that might rot away or get broken. One day, I’d like to be able to use them in some kind of indoor arrangement.

My grandparents grew up during the Great Depression, so I’m sure that had an impact on them throughout their adult life too. My grandfather only had an 8th grade education, but he was able to build a lot of things. In addition to the decorative things like the wooden tulips, he made tables and cupboards and shelving units. When my father started the family business in the eighties, my grandfather built the front counters, work/storage tables, shelving units and rolling work tables. He also built the bird cage my dove lived in for about 25 years.

When I was a kid and used to catch butterflies and other insects, my grandparents would usually make the nets. I think I had one store-bought net, and those nets don’t last long! They tear too easily. So, my grandmother would repair or replace the netting. And, my grandfather would make new net rims and handles.

If something ripped, you patched it. If something broke, you fixed it. Never throw anything away! My grandmother would wash styrofoam coffee cups from fast food restaurants, and reuse them. I don’t know why; she had a cupboard full of glasses and cups. But, I guess that was one of the things they probably learned growing up. Don’t waste anything!

And, that’s an attitude many of us will have to adopt these days. Gone are the days where you can just throw something away and buy a new one. Many people just don’t have that kind of money anymore. Patching, fixing and repairing are things we’re probably going to become very familiar with in the days ahead.

Remember the second economic stimulus check that was talked about earlier this year? They said on the news tonight that that’s not going to happen, as if you hadn’t already guessed. It would have cost something like $50 billion to send out those checks, and they just gave $700 billion to Wall Street. So, hope you didn’t already spend the check you’re not going to be getting!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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