Traveling on the back roads of Louisiana I caught my first glimpse of junkyards. I was fascinated as we drove by broken down houses with discarded junk. Probably every car they ever owned filled the backyards while old busted appliances lined the porch. I couldn’t understand why they kept it all. I mean just look at the cars for one thing. Were they originally bought as fixer uppers and they never got around to fixing them or did the car just not work one day and they pushed it into the backyard hoping to fix it and from then on each car was pushed further back till the yard was full. Then what? I’ve never witnessed anyone ever pushing a car in or out of their backyard, but there they are lined up with four-foot weeds growing up through the open hood of the car. Why did they leave the hoods opened?  My dad said they probably couldn’t afford to have it hauled away, but boy they had a nice new Cadillac parked out front.

 
Moving every year kept us from acquiring excess baggage. My mom was an expert in throwing things out. I lost some great vintage clothing like my 70’s leather vest with 18” fringe and my bell-bottom jeans that I embroidered myself. Mom would ask, “Not wearing them anymore?” Next thing I knew they were gone. Everything has its place, if there isn’t a place then it doesn’t come into the house. To this day, she can’t stand clutter; I found a term that fit her to a T- minimalist.
 
Me? Well let’s just say some junk has my name written all over it and it’s not going anywhere, however I have gotten better in minimizing junk, especially when we moved from the old house to this one. Salvation Army visited every other day for a month. I didn’t realize how much we had accumulated over the 15 years we had lived there. Raising three boys in itself can raise the junk level. Of course, when they moved out their junk didn’t go stayed put.  
 
I promised myself that if I was going to buy junk, it was going to be quality junk. So far, I’ve stuck to it, but I’m sure if we ever move I’ll have to invite Salvation Army to come by once a week. One thing I can say is I don’t have a broken down washing machine on my front porch. Mine works. Just kidding.

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