Our youngest daughter has been away at college for over a month. This past weekend, my wife and I went into her room to straighten things up for the time when she comes home to visit.

The afternoon went by quickly, and we accomplished our goal. Before she left, Maddie gathered up some things that needed to be taken to Goodwill. I will get those items delivered. It's only been six weeks, more or less. Perhaps I can find time to organize a Procrastinator's Club. But here's the rub: if I organize it, I can never be a member.

You can't argue with logic.

During this cleaning and purging period, which is a healthy thing to do every so often, I am reminded of several things. First is that as a society, we are simply too wrapped up in material possessions. If the Beatles were all alive and recording today, "All You Need is Stuff" would be a sure-fire hit. With the trend of smaller families, we tend to purchase more of everything from toys to clothing for each child. And since the majority of us came from larger families and having "hand-me-down" clothing was essential, we keep this tradition and pass clothing down from one child to the next.

I grew up one of six children, and hand-me-downs were the rule. We were all three years apart in age, with the exception of the six-year gap between me and my youngest brother, the sixth child. I had a brother that was three years older than me and another that was nine years older, so some of the clothes I wore were being worn for the third go round.

Getting brand new clothing was something of a special event, one reserved for birthdays and holidays. Being a kid, I really didn't care much about clothing. Having something that fit was great. If it happened to have come back in style by the time I was wearing it, that was an added bonus!

Knowing that money was tight, we quickly learned that getting a job would give us money to spend on whatever we wanted, including new clothing. Delivering papers, working after school and weekends at the grocery store, walking beans, detasseling corn -- all ways to get money to get what we wanted, from comic books to clothes to records (being an early embracer of new technology, I opted for cassettes) and eventually cars.

The town that I lived in was 20 miles away from three county seats, so there wasn't a great deal of retail, especially for a pre-teen. We had a variety store that we called a "dime store," a place that carried everything from toys to candy to clothing and cooking utensils. The drug store was the place to buy comic books.

With my money, I purchased some comic books. I started when they were "still only 12¢" and gave up when they reached 50¢. When I outgrew them, my younger brother inherited them. I imagine some of them are worth some money, but that's the risk you run with hand-me-downs.

I joined a record club, which was really cool at the time, but became a tremendous pain fulfilling my "contractual obligation" purchases at the regular price, so I resigned my membership.

I went through a buy things through the mail phase (six to eight weeks for delivery) and bought some what I thought was cool then t-shirts. I'm not sure if they were cool six years later for my kid brother, but he could get his own job and buy his own cool shirts.

Did I mind wearing a "Keep on Truckin'" t-shirt? No, in fact I thought it was kind of cool. It had come back in style in the nine years it lay in dressers in our house.

We recycled before it was cool.

As always, I welcome your comments. You can reach me by email at tstangl@lemarscomm.net, telephone 712-546-7031, x40 or toll free 1-800-728-0066 x40.

Thanks for reading, I'll keep in touch. Feel free to do the same.