DOWNSIZING ADVANTAGE? NO MORE HAUNTED HOUSE

The downsizing advantage hardly mentioned is losing a sense of place.

And it’s a good thing.

Move from the house you raised a family in and the reminders stay.

The kids’ rooms, the family room, the office room, the dining room, the kitchen, and everything else, stays.

The garage, storage spaces, window covering, decks? They all stay.

What doesn’t stay? You and I.

The downsizing advantage for older people is the big clear-out. A lifetime of accumulation goes away. Garage sales, donations, and dump runs make it happen.

“Why not save this and save that and save everything since we’ve got the room,” are words that echo from the past, replaced by new words.

“Where did this come from? I didn’t buy that. Weren’t we saving this for someone? We don’t need that anymore.”

What You Need To Remember

I’ve helped others downsize, if clearing out one room counts. They didn’t move, they just piled all the extras into one bedroom for years, then cried all day taking it out.

Things evened out after it was all done and put back together. They were glad to get it done.

Just because stuff goes out the door, the connections don’t, and that’s a downsizing advantage:

We get to do a life review of the stuff leaving. A closet packed to the max details the passing years in style. The load of shoes show trendy footwear.

It turned out to be a good exercise for what I’ve avoided forever. How am I supposed to downsize anything since everything I’ve collected are treasures, not crap. But, as we all know, value is in the eye of the beholder.

Luckily I’m married so I have someone else to blame.

“That? That’s not mine, it’s hers. I’d never pick that. Please.”

I held a Wilson baseball mitt I bought her during the Major League Baseball strike in 1994.

Actually, I bought two mitts that Christmas, one for her and one for me since I was still yearning for that Wilson A2000 I didn’t have as a kid. As of today they’re still not broken in.

We weren’t much of a baseball family, but going out for a catch sounded good. I’ll wait for it.

What’s worth remembering is the good intentions associated with the baseball mitts on my closet shelf. Grandkids are going to love these vintage babies.

Memories In The Corners Of My Mind

The mitts remind me of my dad’s glove when I was a kid. He’d had it forever and kept the leather well oiled. I think the oil is what attracted the dog when we weren’t looking.

When we were looking the dog had already chewed hell out of the old man’s mitt. It might have been an A2000.

Even if my mitts never see a baseball diamond, they are solid Allstars, like the boxing gloves I gifted my children.

With two thumper boys in high school, I got a two pair of 16 oz red Everlast boxing gloves with elastic wrists.

My dad tried the same thing when his boys were in high school, but my mom wouldn’t have it and returned them immediately. So much for gentle fighting, but we still managed to mix it up.

I showed my boys how to spar, how to move, how to bob and weave like Smoking Joe Frazier. The first one got it and we danced around while tapping each other for effect.

The second one decided he was more Ali and floated like a butterfly before clocking me a good one and running off.

Yes, he stung like a bee, but he didn’t want to continue.

The big event happened late one night while I was asleep. I got up the next day to find my front yard trampled.

The kids invited their buddies over for a smoker. They put the gloves on and played king of the mountain, or bull in the ring, or something where the winner keeps fighting. One of their buddies pounded everyone into the shrubbery.

Downsizing Advantage Of Family Equipment

I had one of those boxing bags, a punching bag attached to a pole anchored in a water filled base.

I drained it out and gave it to the neighbor kids to take home. A short time later it was back in my garage. Their mom didn’t want any more violence in her house, which I thought was a mistake.

Violence is kids punching each other; fun is punching a moving bag.

Who doesn’t like fun?

I had no fun recycling the bike I bought when I moved to Portland in 1980. A big silver Fuji with custom features I added, it was my ride until I got married six years later.

To make it more special, it was same bike my old girlfriend had when I met her, the same girl I moved to the east coast for, the one I broke up with and moved to New York City, or she broke up with me. It was a long time ago.

I rode that bike in Portland like a maniac. Broadway was no problem since I could keep up in traffic lanes. That was the bike I set my Personal Record on, riding from Eugene to Portland up I-5, the same bike I set a speed record on riding from the top of Burnside.

I took this treasure trove of memories to the local bike shop and learned it was scrap after parking it for twenty-five years. The man tossed it on a pile of other old bikes.

Take A Picture Of Downsizing Advantage

If you get old enough the old days really are old. I’m a mid-century boomer myself, which is very in vogue, at least the mid-century part.

Turns out I was born nine years after the end of WWII, fifteen years before man walked on the moon, and sixty five years before the Covid pandemic.

It’s quite a span and I’m not alone. Baby Boomers, the once largest generation now replaced by millennials, are making moves.

The Early Boomers born between 1946-50, are setting the pace. Mid-Boomers born between 1951-58 are taking notes. Late Boomers, 1959-64 are leading the pack where it counts.

The first group is well into age awareness and make as much noise as possible to prove they aren’t old enough to be old.

“We’re living our best lives,” they say. Who’s going to argue with an old person?

The middle group is digging in with fitness routines and botox and hair dye to stay in the game.

“How old do you think I am,” they ask?

The last group is the power cohort, moving up and lifting others along the way. They’ve paid their dues and it’s time to collect. Ignore them at a your own risk and regret.

This is the group who will change the world from now on. We can depend on them to link the hippie aesthete to current day living. They have the vision and ability to see outcomes beyond the predicable.

These are the chargers future generations will look back on to define the best of the Boomers, so don’t screw up.