Box: 007
Provenance: San Francisco, CA
Description: Garbage Bag in a Laundry Basket
Contents:
Multiple plushies with tags still attached
Corcoran & Matterhorn combat boots, women’s size 8.5
57 rolls of unused film, both 35mm and medium format
Camera batteries
Disposable underwater camera with 10 exposures left
Black clothing hangers
Socks
Mickey Mouse & Friends mousepad
2012 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
Raley’s Bel Air Nob Hill magazine
Joyce Meyer’s Ministries magazine
Ruminations:
The plushies were a mystery not because I have no idea why my mother had them but because I could think of a number of reasons. Did she think they would be worth money someday? Did she buy them as eventual gifts? Did she buy them because she liked them? She was a Taurus and absolutely loved a good cuddle and something cozy. Her photograph is next to the dictionary entry for “pleasure-seeking.”
As for the combat boots, I had a matching pair. Actually, I had the first pair I had purchased for her at her request but while they were too small for her, they were just right for me. This pair sat in this laundry basket in my aunt’s garage in the city for over a decade. Aside from trying them on, my mother never wore them. She had begged me for these boots for years which reminded her of the best time of her life: when she was in the U.S. Army. But she had a habit of asking for things or buying things and never using them—such is the way of a hoarder. Side note: this is why I categorize billionaires as hoarders and I’m sticking to it.
I may have already mentioned that my mother was a professional photographer. Her love of photography began in high school and she was the photographer for the school yearbook? Newspaper? Both? For most of her adult life, she was almost never seen without a camera. Photography, like many arts and hobbies, is primed for hoarding and the box of unused film was no surprise at all. It’s probably all bad, having sat in a garage in San Francisco for eleven years and there was even Kodachrome in there which is no longer made nor processed.
I’ve kept the boots for now because I don’t know who to give them to yet or if I should try to sell them. I have the very expired film, camera batteries, and disposable camera as well. I’m sure I’ll get the camera developed at some point and the film? I’m not yet ready to make a decision.
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