U3A Writing: Whatever Happened To...?
Two nights ago I dreamt that I was sitting on top of a mountain of my old clothes, says Cynthia Kasmy, as she ponders the mystery of what happens to our possessions when we get rid of them.
Have you ever wondered where all the things that you have discarded over the years have ended up? All those smart dresses and suits that were still in good condition so many years ago and all the electrical appliances that just stopped functioning as they should have, must surely be somewhere.
I remember just after I got married many years ago I bought two fashionable outfits - a turquoise blue straight sleeveless dress with a long sleeved jacket and a floral sleeveless dress with three quarter sleeved jacket. I really thought that they were so smart and useful and I kept them for better wear.
In those days everybody dressed up to go to "the bioscope" on a Saturday night. Men wore suits and ladies dressed to be seen. It was often a problem to get seats for a Saturday night show and each of the big theatres seated well over a thousand people.
Getting back to my suits. I only wore them on and off for about two years and then I gave them away to a charitable jumble sale. Something must have happened to them. Maybe a poor person could still be wearing my old clothes. All those discarded items. They could not have just disappeared off the face of the earth.
I remember lending a blue dress to one of my friends. We had been out to a party and she spilt something on her dress. I lived nearby so we went back to my lodgings to change her dress before returning to the party. She never ever returned that blue dress to me and I have often wondered over the years where that dress eventually landed up.
In 1968 we sold our old refrigerator to a second-hand dealer. It was still in working order but we had bought a new, large refrigerator with plenty of deepfreeze space and I definitely did not have the room to keep two fridges. All those old toasters, irons and kettles long out of use could just not have vanished in thin air. Maybe there is a place somewhere where all these things are piled up, but I have not heard of it.
I remember queueing up as a teenager to get underwear when shipments arrived from overseas. Where are all those bras, petticoats and panties? Two nights ago I dreamt that I was sitting on top of a mountain of my old clothes - much loved dresses, jackets, jerseys and hundreds of pairs of shoes. I could not climb down from that high mountain. Where is everything?
We all have to part company with personal treasures some time during our lifetime but think about it logically for a minute. Whatever happened to all our previous possessions?
