You're not going to throw that away are you?

I used to puzzle at my grandmother's inability to throw anything away. It was a quality, I assumed, that was unique to all old people. She saved everything and I do mean EVERYTHING. Row after row of cottage cheese containers lined the walls in her storage room from the floor to the ceiling. Milk cartons were sawed in half with an ancient knife she also used as a back scratcher and converted into compost pails. She promptly turned my uncles' whitey tighties into dish rags once they got a hole or two. Aside from her unreasonable fear of throwing things away, she was equally mortified by the thought of some unsuspecting paramedic or emergency room nurse encountering a pair of dirty, holey underwear should any of her sons ever get into an accident. She had a reputation to protect. Pantyhose, after undergoing several repairs with clear nail polish, eventually went from hugging my grandmother's spindly legs to hugging bulbous onions and garlic. Newspaper were saved and used as landscaping fabric. Cold cream bottles became jewelry boxes. Slacks were patched and the patched again. She wore shoes that were older than me. And she could get more life out of a platic babushka then most would get out of ten. Disposable was a dirty word to my Grandma. I won't print this particular feminine item, but she reused them too. Before you get too grossed out, they were cloth. Which brings me to diapers. She, of course, never got near a Pamper. Oh...and she refused to use the dishwasher one of my uncle's gave her for Christmas. It was new-fangled, a water-waster, and she was sure, that it couldn't possibly get the dishes as clean as she could. Instead she stored winter clothes in it. The dog never ate dog food, but instead feasted on leftovers from her eldest son's restaraunt. That too was stored in a sawed-off milk jug. And maybe the strangest of all--when they needed a TV-stand for their new TV, they hollowed out the old console and shoved the new one inside. It was the talk of the neighborhood.

I was a teenager by the time I figured out her pack-rat-i-ness was born out of a childhood lived under the opressive shadow of the Great Depression. She never spoke of those lean days. Maybe it was too painful. What I do know is that her caretakers, a kindly aunt and uncle who had no children of their own, lost their farm in the Depression. They were forced to leave home and land behind and move to the city to find work. Her good uncle took odd jobs which provided a pittance compared to the bounty their thriving farm once provided. I have to think that they looked back on better days and regreted the half can of potted meat they once threw away, or those socks that really could have beenn darned one more time. How good that meat would taste now, how cozy those socks would feel on work-worn feet. If only we hadn't thrown them away.

In a year, I may, like my Depression-era ancestors, regret the wastefulness that has ruled my life. Leftovers so easily disdained today, could fill a stomach tomorrow.