Antiquities they ain't
So I was over at my parents' place, helping Dear Old Mum put together a simple computer template that she could print off for her friends who are trying to pressure the local council into something or other.
Before I escaped, I got handed a baggie of items which had apparently been sitting in some forgotten corner for slightly over twenty years and only recently uncovered. These were thingamajigs which were issued at the time and had some vague connection to something or other, so Mum had picked them up 'for the kids'.
Sigh. I know that she's getting a touch more morbid since her dad died, making her generation the oldest one in our family, but distributing the family junk heirloom-ish things 'to the kids' is a pain when I'm (a) the only kid within two thousand miles, and (b) the only one who has both been tagged as 'responsible' and doesn't have toddling spawn of their own.
I dare say that some student of late 20th-century local history would be thrilled to have these little knicknacks. And I'm sure that for Mum, they hold some special significance and cherished memories. They just have absolutely no meaning, recollection or nostalgia for me. They didn't when I was a kid, I'd completely forgotten about them over the last 20 years, and even now they're nothing more than old bits of paper/plastic/alloy/whatever.
I know, I know, I have no sense of historical perspective, etc. I've just never been of the opinion that things should be nominally more interesting or important to me personally simply because they're old. Sure, there are people who study that stuff, and hey, more power to them. I'll save an old thing if I think someone might want to look at it, but I'd be happier if they simply took it with them, assuming I'm not using it for anything. That way I'm happy, the historian is happy, everyone wins.
But seriously, if it came down to it, I wouldn't have any problem with putting a wrecking ball through the house I grew up in and replacing it with something that wasn't a creaky old wooden pile of planks, polished floors and fourteen-foot ceilings aside (which makes it sound a heck of a lot grander than it actually is, believe me. The block would be land value only).
Before I escaped, I got handed a baggie of items which had apparently been sitting in some forgotten corner for slightly over twenty years and only recently uncovered. These were thingamajigs which were issued at the time and had some vague connection to something or other, so Mum had picked them up 'for the kids'.
Sigh. I know that she's getting a touch more morbid since her dad died, making her generation the oldest one in our family, but distributing the family junk heirloom-ish things 'to the kids' is a pain when I'm (a) the only kid within two thousand miles, and (b) the only one who has both been tagged as 'responsible' and doesn't have toddling spawn of their own.
I dare say that some student of late 20th-century local history would be thrilled to have these little knicknacks. And I'm sure that for Mum, they hold some special significance and cherished memories. They just have absolutely no meaning, recollection or nostalgia for me. They didn't when I was a kid, I'd completely forgotten about them over the last 20 years, and even now they're nothing more than old bits of paper/plastic/alloy/whatever.
I know, I know, I have no sense of historical perspective, etc. I've just never been of the opinion that things should be nominally more interesting or important to me personally simply because they're old. Sure, there are people who study that stuff, and hey, more power to them. I'll save an old thing if I think someone might want to look at it, but I'd be happier if they simply took it with them, assuming I'm not using it for anything. That way I'm happy, the historian is happy, everyone wins.
But seriously, if it came down to it, I wouldn't have any problem with putting a wrecking ball through the house I grew up in and replacing it with something that wasn't a creaky old wooden pile of planks, polished floors and fourteen-foot ceilings aside (which makes it sound a heck of a lot grander than it actually is, believe me. The block would be land value only).