Before you get on your high horse, this is not intended to start a debate as to what we should have done or should do in the future with regard to recycling and/or repurposing. Thank you.
In the last couple of weeks, I have had the opportunity to walk through a few buildings that are abandoned. Two were old family practice clinics. A few were just old stores that are owned by a friend and are now filled with his "collections". A couple were houses of distant relatives.
As I walked through, I couldn't help but imagine what those places looked like when they were operating.
In one of the clinics there were plaques on the wall that read....
"To Dr. Miller In appreciation for your outstanding treatment of our mother."
"To Dr. Miller in appreciation for curing my chronic cough of more than twenty years."
Both clinics were full of old desks, files, medical equipment, etc.
My friends "collections" consist of furniture, old store equipment, wooden boxes, etc.
These things hold no value to anyone whatsoever. If I were "awarded" the contents of all of these buildings I wouldn't begin to know what to do with the stuff. I don't need it. Nobody needs it. Sure, I could make up uses for some of it. But why would I? Tearing apart an old broken desk to use the wood to help do repairs for some poor family would take a lot more time than running to Lowe's and getting what I need. Nobody needs 14 old rusty file cabinets.... for anything. Heck, it would make more sense to donate a computer to some poor struggling business man to keep files in rather than help him set up half a dozen file cabinets and a paper system. Nobody needs 35 old stained busted clinic lobby chairs..... old metal shelves from an old drug store.....for anything.
How many of you own baseball trophies from your grandfather's childhood? Even if you give a crap about those items, your kids won't care about them at all. How many of you look around homes of elderly relatives and see hundreds of items that nobody on Earth would ever want or need? Little ceramic cats...... old briefcases.... furniture with no special value....... My grandmother's health is failing. There are a couple of small items I want as keepsakes. But if her couch were dropped off at my house right now it would stay in the driveway until someone came to take it away. Heck, the land under her house is worth more without the house than with it.
Even if one were to donate the entire contents of these buildings to charity, the charities wouldn't be able to do anything with most of it. It would cost more to get a desk to Africa than it would to build a desk in Africa. There are no poor people in need of an old busted desk in my area. And it would cost more to transport buildings worth of this stuff to areas of need than it would to find used stuff in their areas. Even if a clinic were in desperate need of an old exam table or otoscope, these wouldn't pass any kind of inspection anyway. So they legally could not use them. They are literally worthless.
I love watching American Pickers. Those guys always leave behind much more than they take with them. They leave entire warehouses of useless, valueless items behind. And with older generations who remember any of this stuff passing on in droves, these items will become even more worthless in the next couple of decades.
The number of humans who give a crap that Vaudeville shows existed at some point in history is already low. Virtually no person on Earth will care, or want any memorabilia from it, in a matter of a few short years.
30 years from now, who on Earth will give a crap about an Elvis souvenir, a vinyl stool from an old soda counter in a drug store, the dashboard from a '74 Nova, any vinyl record at all, any CD at all, any Peavey speaker or amp from the 80s, thousands and thousands of appliances that will no longer keep up with technology or be supported with parts, DVD players, CRT televisions, National Geographic magazines from the 60s, a butter churn from the 1800s, baseball cards of any kind, etc.?
Most things that we consider "collectible" today will hold zero value in a few short years because there is no context for younger generations. My daughters (now 3 and 6) and their generation will probably never hear or read the names Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson, Burt Reynolds, Eric Estrada, Norman Rockwell....... They won't know who Robert Duvall is. They won't know what All in the Family or Three's Company is. (There are probably quite a few people on this forum as we speak who have no idea what/who I am talking about.) So why would any of the memorabilia from any of those shows or people matter to them? Sure, some things will be "timeless". But most won't.
Just looking around my office as I type this, I see things that are of great value to me, but will be of no value whatsoever after I am gone. Pictures of, and artwork from, my kids. An AM/FM radio with CD player I use to listen to local radio stations while I work.
My sister died very young (20 years old) in '94. Virtually everything she owned has no value whatsoever to anyone other than those who knew her well. How quickly that happened (in historical terms) is mind boggling. Clothes she wore.... stuff she used daily..... none of that stuff is relevant to anyone today.
(I'm rambling. Sorry.)
Short version: I guess it just blows my mind how many objects I have seen in the last month that, if they were gone, nobody on Earth would care or even notice. What in the world are we going to do with these things over time? Lots of it can not be recycled or repurposed. Somebody will eventually have to deal with these items. Everything will look very different in 50 years. Most of what we see as valuable today will be utterly useless/worthless by then. The way we look at the Civil War today is how they will view WWII through the 60s. The Old West will seem like the days of the cavemen.
It hurts me head to think about. So, I will give it to you and let you dwell on it for me. Thanks.
In the last couple of weeks, I have had the opportunity to walk through a few buildings that are abandoned. Two were old family practice clinics. A few were just old stores that are owned by a friend and are now filled with his "collections". A couple were houses of distant relatives.
As I walked through, I couldn't help but imagine what those places looked like when they were operating.
In one of the clinics there were plaques on the wall that read....
"To Dr. Miller In appreciation for your outstanding treatment of our mother."
"To Dr. Miller in appreciation for curing my chronic cough of more than twenty years."
Both clinics were full of old desks, files, medical equipment, etc.
My friends "collections" consist of furniture, old store equipment, wooden boxes, etc.
These things hold no value to anyone whatsoever. If I were "awarded" the contents of all of these buildings I wouldn't begin to know what to do with the stuff. I don't need it. Nobody needs it. Sure, I could make up uses for some of it. But why would I? Tearing apart an old broken desk to use the wood to help do repairs for some poor family would take a lot more time than running to Lowe's and getting what I need. Nobody needs 14 old rusty file cabinets.... for anything. Heck, it would make more sense to donate a computer to some poor struggling business man to keep files in rather than help him set up half a dozen file cabinets and a paper system. Nobody needs 35 old stained busted clinic lobby chairs..... old metal shelves from an old drug store.....for anything.
How many of you own baseball trophies from your grandfather's childhood? Even if you give a crap about those items, your kids won't care about them at all. How many of you look around homes of elderly relatives and see hundreds of items that nobody on Earth would ever want or need? Little ceramic cats...... old briefcases.... furniture with no special value....... My grandmother's health is failing. There are a couple of small items I want as keepsakes. But if her couch were dropped off at my house right now it would stay in the driveway until someone came to take it away. Heck, the land under her house is worth more without the house than with it.
Even if one were to donate the entire contents of these buildings to charity, the charities wouldn't be able to do anything with most of it. It would cost more to get a desk to Africa than it would to build a desk in Africa. There are no poor people in need of an old busted desk in my area. And it would cost more to transport buildings worth of this stuff to areas of need than it would to find used stuff in their areas. Even if a clinic were in desperate need of an old exam table or otoscope, these wouldn't pass any kind of inspection anyway. So they legally could not use them. They are literally worthless.
I love watching American Pickers. Those guys always leave behind much more than they take with them. They leave entire warehouses of useless, valueless items behind. And with older generations who remember any of this stuff passing on in droves, these items will become even more worthless in the next couple of decades.
The number of humans who give a crap that Vaudeville shows existed at some point in history is already low. Virtually no person on Earth will care, or want any memorabilia from it, in a matter of a few short years.
30 years from now, who on Earth will give a crap about an Elvis souvenir, a vinyl stool from an old soda counter in a drug store, the dashboard from a '74 Nova, any vinyl record at all, any CD at all, any Peavey speaker or amp from the 80s, thousands and thousands of appliances that will no longer keep up with technology or be supported with parts, DVD players, CRT televisions, National Geographic magazines from the 60s, a butter churn from the 1800s, baseball cards of any kind, etc.?
Most things that we consider "collectible" today will hold zero value in a few short years because there is no context for younger generations. My daughters (now 3 and 6) and their generation will probably never hear or read the names Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson, Burt Reynolds, Eric Estrada, Norman Rockwell....... They won't know who Robert Duvall is. They won't know what All in the Family or Three's Company is. (There are probably quite a few people on this forum as we speak who have no idea what/who I am talking about.) So why would any of the memorabilia from any of those shows or people matter to them? Sure, some things will be "timeless". But most won't.
Just looking around my office as I type this, I see things that are of great value to me, but will be of no value whatsoever after I am gone. Pictures of, and artwork from, my kids. An AM/FM radio with CD player I use to listen to local radio stations while I work.
My sister died very young (20 years old) in '94. Virtually everything she owned has no value whatsoever to anyone other than those who knew her well. How quickly that happened (in historical terms) is mind boggling. Clothes she wore.... stuff she used daily..... none of that stuff is relevant to anyone today.
(I'm rambling. Sorry.)
Short version: I guess it just blows my mind how many objects I have seen in the last month that, if they were gone, nobody on Earth would care or even notice. What in the world are we going to do with these things over time? Lots of it can not be recycled or repurposed. Somebody will eventually have to deal with these items. Everything will look very different in 50 years. Most of what we see as valuable today will be utterly useless/worthless by then. The way we look at the Civil War today is how they will view WWII through the 60s. The Old West will seem like the days of the cavemen.
It hurts me head to think about. So, I will give it to you and let you dwell on it for me. Thanks.
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