This story seems to start in an existing conversation. That’s because it actually does. This was my reply in a conversation over at Stella’s Place last April. One of our Treeper’s was talking about helping his dad downsize, and working with his sisters to clean out some old stuff. In that conversation, I told this really unusual story of an experience related to cleaning out my mother’s home.
I’m hoping some of you have some stories to relate, stories that end with a twist, like this one did. Sometimes life gives strange surprises.
Share a tale or two with us today.
T, my mother was a hoarder before it was a tv thing, and they are mostly probably amateurs. Don’t know, don’t watch. Boy have I got a funny, sad story for you, since Sharon put me in the mood for a good story.
This is one of the gosh darndest stories of my life. Apologies all, this is a long story.
My mother died in 1998, probably one of the peak periods of my life in terms of pressure, stress, kids still in high school, job, etc. She left a house that had a two to three foot wide path through it, with an empty spot or two on the couch, her chair, and less than half her king sized bed. No one had been able to see the kitchen table or counter for many years.
She also had four outbuildings that had to be cleaned out. My brother declared himself “unable to deal with it yet” and in the 4+ months it took to get it done, he remained unable to deal with anything but bringing his wife religiously every weekend to plunder what I’d uncovered that they wanted.
All my life I’d been super ashamed of how we lived, and I was even then. My two sons who were still at home would come help when they weren’t working. My husband did not get back from work until after 7:30 at night, so he was only able to help some on Sundays if I wasn’t at work then.
I was working at Home Depot and I was on the cusp of getting promoted from hourly department head to my first management position. Even though I could only work off days and mornings on the days I closed, I refused to accept help except from my husband and sons, and one of his sisters.
My mother would never tell me where any valuables were, and I couldn’t even find her important papers, which were not in the box at the bank. So, I could not just throw things out, especially papers, and she had all the usual hoarder magazines and newspapers from umpteen years ago, etc.
My sister in law and I found many, many things that made us go, huh? Bags of leaves in the closet, big green garage bags. In one storage building there were garbage bags full of paper towel pasteboard centers and empty milk jugs.
But the all time most baffling one was found in the built in wall hutch in the dining room of the old house. We opened the doors at the bottom, and the first thing I tried to remove was a smaller garbage bag. Only to find it didn’t budge, it was too heavy.
My sister in law had a real appreciation for antiques, and quite a bit of knowledge of them, and while I was miserable, she was ever hopeful of finding great treasure. She shoved me out of the way and began speculating what we might have found, even wondering if it might be a big chunk of gold.
So, I tore open the bag, only to find a big heavy thing wrapped in foil, tore off the foil, which was old and not tearing well. There were layers of paper towels. Our anticipation rose higher. Another layer of foil under paper towels, I’m not kidding, and one last layer of paper towels.
At that point, even I was excited. What could she have treasured that much to have so carefully wrapped and stored it?
Well, it was a big round, kind of flat on the bottom creek rock. I marched outside and tossed it off the porch into the grass and hedges.
Over the years I often wondered about that rock and why she kept it. She was a hoarder, but aside from whatever causes that, she wasn’t mentally ill. Of course, I resigned myself to never knowing. And this is where it gets really weird and interesting.
A few years later I was at work and heard my name being called. A new hire at the Depot introduced herself and explained that our mothers had been best friends. They’d met on a cruise ship, taken trips to Hawaii several times, and had lots of adventures here at home too. I became good friends with the daughter.
Eventually one day, years later when we were having dinner and talking about our moms, I told her and her partner the rock story. She got this really amazed look on her face and said “Menagerie, I can tell you why she had that rock.”
Every New Years the moms cooked black eyed peas and greens. I’m sure you know, it’s a Southern thang. They decided they wanted kraut. My Mama had tons of huge crocks. They made the best friend’s husband take them up Sand Mountain to a wide, shallow creek filled with big rocks.
Apparently they spent an hour or two making him wade and turn over rocks until he found one just the right size and kind of flat on the bottom. Perfect for mashing down the cabbage in the crock. And every year they had kraut on New Years.
My friend and I still laugh about it, and my sister in law was floored to finally have the mystery of Mama’s rock solved.
Great story Menagerie!
We live in a sacramental world. Your Mom’s rock was just a rock. As you unwrapped it, you obviously detected it was more than just a rock, but the meaning was hidden. When you (coincidentally, or not?) learned that there was a story, a purpose, and a meaning, life (so to speak) was breathed into it and it became sacramental.
I feel very blessed that God has given me the grace to discern that this world and all people are sacramental with meaning, purpose, and story breathed into them through the Word of God.
I have great pity for the poor souls who have lost God. Is it any wonder that so many walk the earth with vacant, empty eyes. To them this world is just a rock and they and all people are clumps of cells.
Lord open their eyes and their hearts.
Again Menagerie thank you for the meaningful story. Bless God now and forever.
My mom was a hoarder too. I remember she used to laugh about how all of us kids would have to clear out all of the junk, after she died. We ended up moving her into a nice little place about 6 months before she died. My brother lived out of state, and had recently had a stroke so I don’t hold it against him for not helping as much, but there were plenty of able bodied adults who could have helped but didn’t.
A story about Mom… making a difference in the population make-up of Alabama!
My parents divorced when I was 10. Unusually, my father, a career Air Force pilot, gained custody of the four of us children, ages 8-11. My dad became my rock. My mother was a fabulous mom in our early years, devoting herself to us kids. Games, camping, cooking, studying, and travel. Their divorce, as happens with so many little people, as Mom called us, was devasting. The aftermath caused a major rift between me and Mom. Thankfully, that rift was healed about a month before she was killed in a car accident in 1984 when I was 28.
Ultimately Mom completed a master’s degree in public administration and was eventually appointed to Governor Fob James’s cabinet in the mid-1970s as Director of Tourism for the State of Alabama. Mom had a brilliant idea which lasted nearly 50 years, two generations!
Mom loved Alabama, the state she was born in. She was creative, resourceful, and visionary. She cataloged the countless credits Alabama had racked up since its slave-holding Confederate history, and its painful record of Governor Wallace’s prejudice: a world-class Shakespeare festival in Anniston, now moved to Montgomery; NASA in Huntsville, the world Domino festival in Andalusia, and the snow-skiing resorts in northern Alabama to the white sandy beaches of Gulf Shores!
Mom saw an opportunity to introduce Americans, and Canadians, to living the American Dream in Alabama! Her slogan and brainchild was Alabama The Beautiful! We have it all! Billboards appeared and the project was launched!
Mom appealed to Alabama business owners to offer Canadian families a chance to redeem their country’s currency at face value at Alabama businesses. The program was so successful that countless Canadian families planned winter vacations in Alabama. The result was parents buying retirement property in a warmer climate and children who sought careers in Alabama and sought to make their homes there because of their delightful family vacation memories.
Fast Forward to 2020. I saw an article on Facebook describing an “outcry” in Alabama about “making a change” and taking down the Alabama the Beautiful billboards that greeted visitors crossing over state lines where Welcome Centers were located. I followed up.
I learned that the “People of Alabama” had spoken so forcefully, that “government” relented and agreed to leave several of the billboards standing.
The moral of the story is, “Do what you can to preserve that what you value!”
This is one of the reasons at 67 that I decided to run for the State Assembly in California. President Trump will need all the state-partners he can get if we are to put the federal, state, and local government-genies back in their bottles!
I hope you win, Deborah. It saddens, and sickens me to watch what leftists have done to this once beautiful state I grew up in. Not so very long ago it was one of the most conservative states in the union. Then for reasons known only to them,back whole new generation decided to vote in moonbat Brown for a second two term disaster. I am old enough to remember how hated he was the first time he was in office.
Thank you, Liz. I like to believe… I hope… I have enough “Trump” New Yorker in me to rise to the occasion. I have followed Donald Trump since 1979 when I first moved to New York City. I lived there for 34 years before moving full-time to live in California.
I have Trump fear on both our cars, our house, and our boat. I have worn Trump gear nearly every day since the fall of 2015. I can report first hand that support for the Ameruca First agenda, MAGA, and Donald Trump is profound!
The totalitarians have been perfecting their manipulation of the narrative against Trump-MAGA here in California for export elsewhere.
As lyrics of one of Trump’s theme songs states… “Hold on… I’m coming…”, Donald Trump’s tenacity, brilliance, and unrelenting love of God, family, and freedom is hope-filled. It inspires me every day.
Menagerie,
While scanning through Craig’s List just now I came across this ad which caused me to freeze and stare at it for several seconds in disbelief. My first thought was that the ad was placed on Craig’s List by you as a practical joke. Then I finally came to my senses and realized that it was a real ad place by a real person who lived in a tiny town east of San Antonio that I have driven through several times when making sales calls in the truck business.
I still am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that this person is real and that the ad is real. This person has done an excellent job of wording this ad for “Sight Unseen” used item purchases. I know, because I have written ads for used; trucks, tractors, and trailers for more than 20 years and sold several “Sight Unseen”, even multiple units.
Over 1400 Empty TP Toilet Paper Towel Rolls Cardboard Tubes Cylinder A – $10 (Marion, TX)
Over 1400 Empty TP Toilet Paper Towel Rolls Cardboard Tubes Cylinder Art Craft Project
Condition: Excellent
I have over ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED, CLEAN, empty toilet paper cardboard rolls or tubes and empty paper-towel-sized cardboard rolls or tubes.
I have 45 bags full of them. Each bag has around 30 TP rolls and 2 paper towel rolls. (That is just a rough estimate; I filled the last bag and counted/weighed the contents (6.6 ounces each), so I could estimate what I have total)
That’s around 1350 TP rolls and 90 Paper Towel rolls!
That’s over EIGHTEEN AND A HALF POUNDS of empty TP rolls.
See photos to see how they are packaged.
The household of origin (mine) and the person collecting/selling them (me) is a NON-SMOKING, NON-PET household. We also don’t use perfume or cologne. Long story short, these cardboard tubes smell like plain cardboard.
Empty toilet paper rolls are great for Arts and Crafts, starting seedlings, gardening, animal toys, school projects, Vacation Bible School, garden, and use around the house. Cardboard roll only, does not include any toilet paper. A great material for arts and crafts projects. Rolls may have imperfections and are not perfect. Almost all toilet paper has been removed, but slight traces may remain. Includes various roll sizes, some are slightly larger than others. Color may vary from light cardboard to darker cardboard. Some have traces of glue.
Asking $10 or Best Offer for the whole lot.
If you are reading this ad, the TP rolls are still available.
I am located in Marion, TX. 12 minutes south of New Braunfels. 15 minutes west of Seguin. 25 minutes east of San Antonio. The house is right on FM-78 which is the main highway through Marion.
https://sanantonio.craigslist.org/art/d/marion-over-1400-empty-tp-toilet-paper/7700668173.html
My mom used to make a pork roast in a pot, all white-meat pork loin, and dumped in a load of sauerkraut in the later steaming phase, after oven-roasting the pork to brown it
So you’d take the lid off and there’d be the roast in there, in a pot full of kraut
The finishing touch would be spooning in a layer of Bisquick dough that’d rise to form dumplings
Served with mashed potatoes, you could mash them down and fill with kraut and juice like you do with gravy … I like black pepper over all of that
Said it was a family Pennsylvania-Dutch recipe, and I only learned a year or two ago that the “Dutch” part actually means “Germans” — “Deutsch”
I’ve looked it up on Wikipedia and they depict various German immigrant settlements around the US – Pennsylvania, upper Midwest, Texas (New Braunfels, etc)