Chapter 707

Sept 5, 2026

Garage Attic

decluttering

It was a monumental effort. Took me 9 days working in 100 degree heat, sweating, struggling bending over, crouched shuffling to not hit head into roof nails or knock my self silly clunking head into rafters. There was dust, disintegrated acetate paper from architectural drawing, and plastic drop cloths, and yes some mouse or bat residue and sunflower seed shells. Yes, I did laugh at my silly self as I lumbered around sometimes wondering how I had accumulated so much stuff. But, I knew exactly how it had happened during those last 50 years.

Many memories like the Allegheny Airlines orange PDQ mesh bags that Kathy brought  me in 1973 when she worked some on the baggage shift at the airport. These were the precursors of Fed Ex over night shipping. I thought they might come in handy for storing potatoes or some such items. Never did use em. And if I had kept them, who knows what use they might be, perhaps holding brook trout in the water up at our Twin Ponds Preserve?  Nevertheless, just about everything seen in this picture has been deleted, thrown into the Clifton Park Landfill.

This attic was basically a storage area for my many projects. Foam sections, cloths, rugs, sporting equipment, bikes, volleyball, soccer, softball, mucho automotive mechanicals.

The barstool chair was one of the originals in our kitchen bar. Googled and some sell for $120 vintage. No relatives or friends wanted. No time to dicker- If you stop to think too much, you will never make progress. Disposed in the metals recycling bid for free. Had another set of 4 maple ones in the cellar. All chucked to landfill. The Town wanted $25 to dispose of if whole. I chainsawed them in 5 minutes reducing the size to C & D (construction demolition) category by cubic yard and it only cost $3 for disposal .   

The 2 nice aluminum bikes (10 speed and 18 speed road bike, ok there were issues- need tlc, which no one does anymore)  went into the metals free recycling bin. Yes, I still have a nice 28 speed Specialized for myself and gave an old Trek 900 to Shawn, which he complains about not being good enough. And Lucas has new state of the art equipment.

Kathy returns to our Leisureville Apartments about 11:30pm from her Allegheny Airlines shift in 1973. I just threw out his galvanized metal one gallon pail from the attic. A little dented, rusty, and leaky now, otherwise I would have kept as useful.

At the house end of the attached garage I kept most of my metal work material. Round pipe, flat sheets of steel and aluminum, some occasional original aluminum house siding if I need to repair anything. 12 gage electrical wiring for the swimming pool pump I ran underground years ago. So many uses for fixing many car mechanical issues etc.

Had already cleared the top two shelves of my favorite bearings & clutch parts from a vaiety of cars and motorcycles.

On the left some universal joints, bearing race from 69 chevelle when I rebuilt the rear differential. Some stainless steel housing from my replaced deep well pump. You might ask why keep this stuff. Well, it came in handy when I replaced the rear pinion oil seal on my 2012 Nissan Frontier. If you match up the same diameter when inserting the oil seal, you wont distort the soft housing rather than tapping around the perimiter with a hammer. Tricks I learned from Dad.

On the right massive nuts and bolts, bearing plates, pivot rods from highway bridge construction. Always thought I'd have used them more but really only used the rectangular steel pieces to spread out the stress for jacking up cars.

Water pump from an old Audi.

My favorite keep the clutch in the center when I replaced it  with throwout bearing and friction discs from my 1971 911T Porsche. Also painted it and welded up the rusted heater boxes (actually brazed with bronze oxy acetylene bronze rods with flux). Was very proud of that car.

Had to jack up the whole car, remove the wheels, disconnect the drive shaft, drop the engine, then unbolt the bell housing to access the clutch. Sounds simple and it was except for the struggle.

There was some diffilculty deciding if I needed to discard, but what required the most time was going up and down the home built stairs over and over again to retrieve the heavy stuff I could barely lift.

ai came in very handy. Taking a photo of the heavy duty steel saw horse legs reveiled that they were called vintage industrial harvest  table  or adjustable trestle / saw horse legs. Never knew that. Also the hockey puck was barely legible or remembered until ai told me it was Scott Sessions #14 from getting a hat trick with the Capital District Islanders 1990-93 at the Troy Field House. Then I recalled when Christie got his signature after a game there (5/93).

In summary, it just felt so good to clean up after a life long usage of materials that I'll likely not need nearly so much anymore. So many things I could have done but clouds got in the way. Actually I accomplished many things like salvaging, body work, and painting our 1976 VW Dasher when it was totaled, but there were other things left undone. I still like to fix things and you might say putter around but I can't work as long and hard as before and I like to take it a bit more leisurely nowadays. Sometimes you just gotta draw a line and say enough is enough.

There is more to go in the garage's first floor level and in the house and basement, but I've learned to trash stuff pretty well now from this experience.