You know that everyone has a passion for something. Some people watch football. Others collect stamps. So let me have the fun of browsing and buying when the sun is out and great bargains are in full display at a yard sale down the street. There comes the day of reckoning, however, when it is time to donate the overflow to some needy charity. Just the other day I went through my four closets of clothing purchased over the years and decided to get rid of anything that I hadn’t worn for at least a year. I had already donated everything that I had outgrown except for that long gold yellow voile dress with the butterfly sleeves which will not allow me to close the zipper but I still can’t bear to part with it.

Digging deeper into one closet I found the fox fur with the head and tail still intact that is a family heirloom. Once I showed it at an antique display at school when I was a teacher and I distinctly remember another teacher telling me to take it out of the display because it was a prime example of animal cruelty. No one is perfect. That teacher happened to be wearing leather shoes at the time.

At last there were four large bags of such things as outmoded political T shirts, thrift shop clothing that I had bought in haste, and a long wool coat flaring at the bottom which had hidden all my pregnancies and was perfect to wear with dresses. Once my school principal announced that I could not wear slacks to school and that made me see red. I went out and purchased a beautiful pants suit and wore it to school the next day. A male colleague asked if my principal allowed me to wear pants to school and I retorted, “Does yours?” That beautiful pants suit is long gone and so are my three inch pumps that I reserved for special occasions. I can’t believe that I actually was able to walk in spike heels or why I would ever follow this fashion dictate but there in my closet was one pair of fuchsia pumps which I had saved as part of a display illustrating how women have been hobbled by fashion over the years.

I hesitated to downsize my collection of Saturday Evening Posts which my mother had stored in her woodshed over the years. You know how difficult it is to get rid of your favorite magazine. Well, she never got rid of hers and I was able to make good use of them. I took a long piece of shelf paper and arranged on it the Saturday Evening Post covers from the WWII years and ever since I have had it on display whenever I give talks about Rosie the Riveter. In fact, Norman Rockwell’s depiction of Rosie is front and center on this visual aid. This piece of history will never be discarded but is slated to go to a museum after I am no longer giving speeches.

What is my recipe for downsizing? If you are still able to wear it or find a good use for it then keep it. That is what I keep in mind when I go through my belongings.
Now I can relax and enjoy what I keep around me until my next sorting spree.

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer who can be reached at HYPERLINK "mailto:gnkunkel@comcast.net" gnkunkel@comcast.net or 206-935-8663. If you are one of those Rosie the Riveters
who worked in war industry during WWII please contact Georgie.