Our plan includes renting our home for a year or more.\u00a0 We will leave it furnished, but will remove all personal items.\u00a0 Some of the most precious – pictures, quilts made by my grandmother and the like – will go into storage. But there is a lot of stuff – “belongings” I guess – that reside in my attic that is less sentimental.\u00a0 For example, I have a lot of books and LP records that I have accumulated over the years and have moved from place to place with some vague intent of using them again at some point.\u00a0 Well, this time I am not moving to a place where I can store them for free and they don’t mean enough to me to pay to keep them in a storage locker.<\/p>\n
So I am putting them on eBay.<\/p>\n
I really thought that it would be somewhat painful parting with these old friends.\u00a0 But not so.\u00a0 Mostly I have a sense of freedom, like a plane that has lost some ice that had accumulated on its wings. And a little greed – it is nice to see that “sold” total increment daily – and a sense of wonder at what sells and what doesn’t.\u00a0 My programming books, some of which are, admittedly, dated (because they are more than a month old), have almost no appeal, even when nearly given away.\u00a0 Hardy Boys books, on the other hand, have a marketing appeal that vastly exceeds their literary value.<\/p>\n
There is no accounting for taste.<\/p>\n
I also learn things I never knew.\u00a0 For example, my old Hardy Boys “Secret of the Old Mill” book, published in 1927, has a red cover. I received an email query asking *which* of the 9 “red cover” editions it was.\u00a0 I had no clue, so I asked how I could tell.\u00a0 I now know that the first three “red cover” editions had no ads for other Hardy Books at the back; the other 6 did.\u00a0 Not particularly valuable information and not something that will make me the life of my next cocktail party, but fun to learn nevertheless.<\/p>\n
I haven’t posted the LPs yet.\u00a0 I was surprised to find, however, that my Beatles “White Album” still had the original poster inside.\u00a0 This apparently makes it more valuable.\u00a0 I will be curious to see what kind of interest it generates.<\/p>\n
My life is for sale. Bid high. Bid often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our plan includes renting our home for a year or more.\u00a0 We will leave it furnished, but will remove all personal items.\u00a0 Some of the most precious – pictures, quilts made by my grandmother and the like – will go into storage. But there is a lot of stuff – “belongings” I guess – that … Continue reading