"What is the craziest thing y'all pack-rats keep?"
Don't know where to begin. I love those old tin coffee cans, the ones with the plastic snap lids. Was a sad day when most coffee started appearing in laminated-paper 'cans'. Just not the same.
I have one can in the pantry clearly marked "old nuts and bolts" - my wife at some point wrote next to the label on the lid, "But why?".
My dad taught me to re-use everything - we couldn't afford food, much less lumber and nails so we re-used any wood we could find, pulling out the nails, and tapping them with a hammer as we rolled them across the floor with our fingers, straightening them out for the next project.
I have old 'Sucrets' tin boxes (think Altoids boxes) with random parts my dad collected almost 70 years ago. I absolutely adore old, obsolete and even hand-made hardware that you'll never see again - I CANNOT throw out old hardware. Have a 140-year-old hardware store near me that is like mecca - has a huge basement filled with dozens of aisles of shelves to the ceiling packed with treasures from before i was born. I would gladly die down there; couple years back I bought a N.O.S. snath there that was at least 50 years old, just waiting for the right buyer to come along. quite sure I'll never match it up with one of the many orphaned scythe blades I have laying around.
I have those plastic organizing snap-lid bins that my father-in-law filled with random bolts, nuts, cotters, wire nuts and washers over 50 years ago. Parts for the tractor BEFORE the '40 9N. Many random pipe fittings, some completely obsolete - he plumbed over half of the old house with salvaged gas-line and fittings. Made any plumbing fix a nightmare. But I still have his 'stores'.
Have plastic peanut-butter jars filled with different length roofing nails, and even one for roofing grit.
But that's nothing. I'm just getting started. Have a 1925 Ford model "T" that hasn't run in 8 years (it WOULD run, just needs a flat fixed and a tank of gas and a battery). Been an albatross around my neck for 25 years - bought it accidentally at an antique toy auction (yes you read that right).
Have a wrecked 1974 Jeep CJ that slid on black ice back in '78 and smacked a tree sideways (had it in 4WD but forgot to lock the front hubs), giving the frame a nice pronounced 'S' shape. I've moved it two times.
I have a 2002 Dodge Dakota pickup that is un-inspectable - rotted body mounts. My local mechanic is keeping it at the moment 'til the wife forgets I still have it. I've long said I want to be buried in that thing - most comfortable, best-driving truck I've ever owned. The grand-kids have an elaborate funeral planned for me using it, employing buckets of gasoline and flaming arrows.
But probably the topper is this; I have a circa 1974 Sears Craftsman 10" radial arm saw that I bought brand new in 1974, still in the unopened crate in my garage. I bounce back-and-forth between being proud, ashamed, confused and astounded at that one. But there it is.
(late addition: the wife just reminded me of the one that is for HER the topper - the mummified cat that she found in the old barn when we cleaned it out, now carefully stored in a 70-year-old front-porch galvanized metal milk box in the barn for when I need it*. That's apparently her 'high-water mark' for my 'hobby'.)
I'm TRYING to do better - I KNOW its going to be a burden to my daughter and her husband. Recently have made serious strides to get at least one side of the garage cleared - but then an uncle died and the aunt asked me to clear out his garage wood-shop (he made canoes and windsor chairs). So here we go again - hundreds of tools, some of which I don't even have a clue what they are. Oh my...
*not totally out of the question; couple years back I traded a mummified possum I found in a different old barn to my nephew in exchange for some hand-made oak trunnels he rived and turned on his lathe. He was happy with the trade, but we still can't tell his wife.
