To Keep or Not to Keep, That is the Question.

The beat up old shoes landed in the trash with a thud.

"What did you just throw away?" he asked.

"Your old shoes."

"Don't throw them out. I might need them someday."

"But the soles are split and they have been condos for dirt daubers in the garage for years," she replied as he rescued the shoes. Her rueful smile acknowledged temporary defeat. For the time being, the evicted dirt daubers would be moving back into those nasty, old shoes. However, when he was not around to stop her, those curled-up, rock-hard shoes did end up in the trash. He never noticed that they were gone.

For folks who lived through the Depression and World War II, it is difficult, if not impossible, to throw anything away. But the tendency to save everything - like ratty old shirts or ugly, but very comfortable shoes - is not exclusive to those who had to be frugal in order to endure hard times. Fact is some people just cannot bear to part with anything.

For example, I have a pair of butter-soft blue jeans with holes around the belt loops and the back pockets that I love to wear when I'm gardening. Yes, they look shabby and are over ten years old, but I'll knock you into the middle of next week if you try to take them from me. Surely, that does not mean I'm a pack rat. (For those who prefer the more sensitive term, try clutter engineer.)

The last time we moved - every day for a week - my husband and his brother filled up two pickup trucks with boxes packed with my books and transported them to our new home. Even though we are both avid readers, Hubby thinks I have too many books. He may be right because there is at least one huge bookcase in every room in our house (except the bathrooms). And perhaps I do own enough books to open a small library, but that alone would not qualify me as a pack rat. Would it?

It is all those other things, like the boxes of old college notes I found in the attic. And why did I keep them? They contained information I thought I might need someday, but so far that someday has not arrived. Or the scraps of material I saved from years of sewing. Most of those pieces weren't large enough for even a Barbie outfit, yet they were carefully folded and saved in six large dresser drawers.

One of my brothers saves newspapers and those burgeoning stacks of unread papers go with him every time he moves. Should he ever decide to read them, he will be reading history instead

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