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A Garbage Story (2018) – Meet Nick DiMola, a bonafide trash connoisseur. He loves his job and he loves garbage. Over 30 years in the garbage business, he has collected a museum’s worth of old and rare items, most of it from the estates of dead people. [00:07:54]
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I find it both interesting and sad. One time I was asked to go clear out the small apartment of an old man who died. His family had gone through and taken the items of interest, and the rest of his stuff was donated to a local charity. I was asked to help a friend who worked at that charity in collecting the items. As we gathered together his entire life, I could see how he spent his final years, the items of interest to him. Yet, as I watched it all being gathered by a team of workers, it meant nothing to them. It dawned on me, then, how it’s all just “stuff”. It’s your treasure, but to your family that has to deal with it, or the estate sale people, or Goodwill, it’s just more stuff. Very sobering.
I went home and cleared out a ton of clutter!
(This was before I started working eBay.)
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I dont judge the people who collect. I’m sure they do it for all kinds of reasons. The hunt. Interest in history. OCD. Especially when people get older, they have lots of time on their hands.
I see all of us as carrying on their work. If we didnt buy and sell their items, all that time/effort would go in the dump. At least we help the next collector with their obsession.
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I go to estate sales a lot and I do appreciate that I am walking through the remnants of someones life. I try to be respectful of the person(s) that passed and of the things they have collected and that I am picking through. I think it actually helps me to be respectful, because it forces me not to judge what I am seeing. I try to look through the eyes of the person that collected this or that thing to try to understand what they thought was valuable. I think this makes me pause and look twice at stuff that I could easily pass over. Also makes the picking much more interesting.
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aperture,
Yes, that is what I was referring to. I think your statement is right on -“I do appreciate that I am walking through the remnants of someones life.”
It’s the knowing that what we are walking into/looking at/touching/buying is from someone’s life, what they valued, how they created their environment, their self expression, and their presensence on this planet. Many of the items that we pick up were of great value (personal or financial) to that person at one time and now they are just considered items for sale and their house (once their home/safe place/life center)is just considered a holding place for their items.
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I bought a lot an an auction a few years ago. I ended up with some pretty cool and profitable items, but also many many personal items. There were hundreds of photographs and slides as well as the documentation relating to his WW2 service and later aerospace work. I paid $30 for six large boxes of everything.
The items were from the estate of his 2nd wife and basically ended up at the auction, one step before the dump.
I guess the phrase “One Man’s Trash is another Man’s Treasure” rings as true today as ever.
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I do find it depressing to enter homes that betray a life of chaos, disorder and filth, like the one portrayed in the film (although boxes of Morgan dollars would go along way to cheering me up). But it’s hard not to view that sort of life as tragic, even if the byproduct is an amazing time capsule.
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The most tragic message is that families don’t seem to care about the history, the memories the world of their past – then again, you only exist as long as you are remembered (paraphrased from WestWorld hahah) – the maudlin music in this mini doc reinforces the message that even those things which he has saved will become irrelevant in the future.
Assigning value to everything is the hoarders dilemma; a slippery slope when you realize no one will care someday.
I once found a pair of WW2 buckle top boots at a church sale (a pair is passed by in the doc) paid nothing and sold them for a fortune. That was at least 10 years ago and the leather has likely deteriorated by now. That memory is completely dissociated from the potential service of the boots (did the tread across Germany?), and becomes a tale of profit, transaction, discovery, and the assignation of value. Many other scavenging and ebay stories start and end the same. And it isn’t bad, in fact it is great, because something was saved, I enjoyed holding the history in my hands, and someone else got to treasure the item purely for what it was.
All good.
Of course, there are similar items still around that I think are too cool – the SL credo which should be adopted – is – LIST EVERYTHING.
Philosophically yours….
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Well said, BTST.
Despite being an unreformed materialist, myself, I have come to grudgingly accept the transient nature of all things (hard not to if you own a 90 year old house). But I still hate being the agent of destruction of the older things that don’t survive my custody intact. Still, it’s a pleasure to rescue some beautifully designed, time-traveling object from oblivion.
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When Im at an auction or estate sale, Im always grateful to the person who’s died and left behind all this stuff. They remind me that nothing I collect in my life really matters. It may bring me joy during my life, but I’ll eventually become dust, alone.
This is why Ryanne and I actually own very little stuff. Art is probably the thing we enjoy the most just because art is cool.
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