COLUMN: What our stuff has done to us

“That’s all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time.”

George Carlin, comedian

Admitted, it’s a bit awkward to start a serious, hopefully thought provocative, pondering column with a quote from a comedian, and an edgy one at that. What George Carlin said decades ago was an unexpected reminder for me.

After the Greenfield tornado on May 21, I went to the town to help Caleb Nelson, our do-it-all newsman there. He didn’t have electricity to finish his work that day. His house had minor damage, but still livable. I found a safe place to park knowing I would have to walk a distance to his house, since the debris from everything destroyed was in the way or in the process of being moved out of the way.

With camera in hand, I began to walk through the destroyed neighborhoods on the way to Caleb’s. It didn’t take long for me to understand one of the emotional and sentimental aspects of the destruction. An antique Polaroid-like picture of an infant was on the ground. My thoughts immediately numbered, and probably exceeded, the number of steps needed to get to Caleb’s. What else of sentimental value had been damaged or lost? Will it be found? Will it be in good enough condition to again put on display?

Not only were people still in shock over what happened. Others were visibly emotional. More people were in construction equipment ready to move fallen trees, houses, garages, damaged cars out of the way. The stories of what has been lost, or how it was found, are endless. The chapel at the Greenfield United Methodist Church is used as a lost-and-found room for some of those sentimental looking items. It is disturbing to know there are people known as looters who intend to find valuable items unintentionally lost in destructive tornadoes.

We live in such a materialistic society, but that may be the consequences of capitalism. Consider how we have changed.

I have heard stories from older generations who remember the farmhouses built 100 years, or older, ago. The bedrooms were small compared today. Closets were smaller as people only had a limited number of clothes for the week and probably something nice for church, funerals and weddings. The same formal clothes were worn to all of those events. Now, we have the phrase “walk in” closet big enough for the person to use it as a private dressing room. We wear outfit A for the wedding, B for the funeral and C for church or a formal event.

Another interesting part is storage facilities. In places like Creston, there are garage-like spaces people rent by the month to hold the stuff they either don’t have room in their house or don’t want in their house. Those spaces may be big enough to store an antique furniture collection or great-grandpa’s first car passed down through the generations. Those places are also storing Christmas decorations or things not needed even on a monthly basis.

Stuff isn’t all that bad, though. Our advances in technology do have benefits. There are places that digitally record and keep those Polaroids, other pictures and home videos taken from the 1970s and older. I don’t know how many baby, high school graduation or wedding pictures will eventually be found in other parts of Adair County, farther, or if ever will be found. The technology used to store those items should still be useful well into the future. My wife and I had our mini-camera video tapes of our children during their infancy 20 plus years ago converted to a modern, digital format to view.

That long afternoon spent in Greenfield did change me, too. I still have my first smartphone, going back to 2012. It’s worthless now, because the manufacturer stopped providing operational updates. It can’t make phone calls anymore. I didn’t want to get rid of it though. The phone still works as a portable alarm clock and digital music player. I still have pictures on it from a 2014 trip to southwest Colorado and Moab, Utah.

A few winters ago, I suspected a leak in my car’s radiator. Needing good light to look at radiator hose connections, a flashlight on that phone was the right size to look into a difficult, tight spot. Unfortunately, the phone slipped out of hand, fell to the ground which caused a minor cracked screen. i don’t think one of those phone-screen fix kiosks in city malls have the needed items to replace the screen because of the phone’s discontinued status.

So much for selling it to a museum in pristine condition for tens of thousands of dollars to begin funding my retirement. I used the phone the weekend after the tornado.

I realized there are victims of tornadoes and floods who would feel better only having a cracked screen.