Second Hand, Second Thoughts

It must have been hell to raise children in the 1970's. The world lost its mind after a series of cultural revolutions and the fallout resulted in the Captain and Tenille, trucker chic, and Herpes.  The Chevy Vega.  Polyester leisure suits.  Leading women's magazines touted the opinion that not only " could  good" girls 'do it' on the first date, good girls should do it on the first date." Men stopped trying to get women to sleep with them the old way: snappy dressing, chocolates and general gallantry and got into silky polyester shirts, unbuttoned them to the navel and started using astrology. I think parents just gave up. I'm pretty sure mine did--at least after giving their previous four kids the ol' college try. My mother made a sort of little playpen in an out-of-the-way corner of her antique shop by making walls of stacks of vintage Playboy  magazines. I remember long winter afternoons, learning to read (they do have excellent articles...

I am not one of those people who insist that my organizational challenges are because I don't have enough space. Neither am I one of those people that can ignore and live amid clutter. My house is cluttered. But I do not have an organizational problem. I simply have run out of space. Really. What we have here is what might be called an inventory problem. It's a small house. We were proud of that. But I was a full-time writer then. Writers don't really need a lot of place to keep your inventory. Okay, fine--there are all those dusty books, and maybe some paper and envelopes, but the majority of that business just stuff you can keep in your head. Now, up to five people live here and we have an open door for friends and family and neighbors. Now, we have three businesses with heavy inventory: coats and jeans and boots; saddles and bridles and blankets; building equipment, tools and materials. Oh, and there are still the books. So, this week, I'm photographin...