musings of a allergic mind

As Americans, we keep too much junk. Take myself for example. I'm sick right now, I've decided to rifle through my personal "files". It's not like I have anything of major importance, but I figured that if I ever had kids, someday they'd want to rifle through dads things after I'm gone. Well, thats still true of course, but it's not as if close to having kids.

Anyway, as Americans, we keep too much junk. A family friend has a childs "teeter-totter" from her sons childhood, among other toys and the like. He's now 22, and doesn't have any kids. She also keeps papers from god knows what. So this made me wnt to re-think my "collection". So the last few days I've gone through my stuff, and found many things that make no sense as to why I kept them.

I found a letter from a radio station, from 1993. They responded to me for god knows what reason.

I found a copy of an email I wrote a talk show in 99 (the host has since gone national) . Not sure why I kept it.

I have an invite to a banquet from 96.

The instructions to a game I haven't had in 13 years.

A catalog from a company I never bought anything from.

political cartoons that are grossly out-dated and no longer funny.

The envelope from a letter a friend of mine wrote me, 6 years ago (the letter is no where to be found).

a "check list" from outdoor school (an Oregon thing).

A paper I wrote for a philosophy class in college, that wasn't worth keeping.

unused post-cards from Portland.

the "achievement certificate" from passing Drivers Education, from 10 years ago.

Seriously, why am I keeping this junk? It seems counter productive to be holding onto such trivial things, especially considering I've forgotten what most of them were about to begin with. I'd understand keeping things that are family momentos, but most of the stuff I've kept is just useless junk.