My oldest and favorite hoodie has been worn to the point that most of the sleeves were too damaged to repair. They'd been repaired, several times now, but the damage was just too extensive and the material too thinned out.
Most people would probably throw the ratty old thing away. I cut the sleeves off above the damaged areas and declared it my new punk hoodie. I wasn't going to toss it. There is still too much use in it.
See, this is the thing about being raised by Depression Era grandparents. I'm not a hoarder. I will get rid of things. I just hate to get do so before all the usefulness is gone. In fact, I had to force myself to throw away the screwed up sleeves. The less damaged one is still sitting on my desk, because I know I can use it for a head cover.
My grandfather always kept rubber bands around. It used to annoy me, but I'll be damned if I don't do the same thing now. I'm using some as the stoppers on the ends of my knitting needles. They work far better than any of the stoppers you can buy. Sure they break sometimes, but that's fine because it's just a rubber band.
As much as I sometimes think they didn't have much influence on me, I know that one of the reasons I can live poor with moderate success is that I watched how they lived and kept things around. I find myself doing the same things now and I'm quite thankful to them for that. And yes, it makes me incapable of tossing away pieces of old, but still useful material, but as long as I'm not drowning in it, then I think I'm okay.
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