This is a story about the long struggle to acquire goods and chattels, and an equally long struggle to divest oneself of same.

My first real job, other that physical labour, was as the advance man of a museum train that was touring the Canadian Prairies years ago. I travelled with a ramshackle, brown suitcase held together by a leather strap. It contained underwear, a few pairs of socks, many books and sheaves of paper for the so-called “portable” typewriter I lugged in my other hand.

I wore sturdy black oxfords, sturdy grey flannels and a sturdy tweed jacket. My shirt was a white wash-and-wear job, and every night, in some small hotel in some small town, I washed it and hung it up to dry in my bedroom. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. By the time I was through Alberta, it was yellow and the sleeves were starting to fall off.

I took all of these possessions – even the shirt – with me when I went to university. After a few days, I finally got a better shirt and another pair of pants. I acquired more books and a duffle bag to carry them in, and that was about all I owned. Except for my cast iron frying pan, which I used faithfully through my second year. Sadly, at that time, I was leaving for yet another railway job and the frying pan was too heavy. I left it on the front lawn of the house at 405 Huron St. in London, Ont. It may be there still.

My brown suitcase, my portable typewriter and my bag of books eventually fetched up in the middle of the Prairies again – and that’s when I entered the age of acquisition. I bought a suit, shirts, a sweater, a selection of cooking pots, a trench coat and a Volkswagen Beetle. Then, I got married and acquired a few more shirts and even a folding chair. But it would all fit in the Volkswagen once I found another university in Ontario.

That period is when things became serious. Along came a sofa, a chest of drawers, several chairs, more books (of course), a few lamps, another suit and, soon after, a crib and a lot of baby clothes.

By now, I had mastered the art of acquisition. I went to auctions and bought books by the yard. I even learned how to make simple shelves. We bought and refinished pine furniture and, at a later stage, started visiting high-end furniture stores. And I had enough clothes to fill a closet.

In due course, we bought a cottage so we would have a spot to store our extra belongings. That’s because every time we moved to a bigger house, we seemed to need more things.

And that is about the time we went over the top of the hill as possessors and started down the other side. For example, while we still bought books, we now gave away more books than we took in. Indeed, we were giving away so many books that the librarian at our small rural library asked me to stop pushing them through the book return chute late in the evening.

That’s when we began taking shopping bags to small, charity-supporting book stores. Not bad books, either: Pierre Berton, Peter C. Newman, Robert B. Parker. And after lugging them around for 50 years, I finally dumped my 12-volume set of the Makers of Canada.

We also looked in our garage and found I had been accumulating lumber. So, we took it to the end of our long drive, and passersby started snapping up 2x4s. The same thing happened to our golf clubs, plates, mugs, pieces of furniture, stools and many, many books.

Anything that wasn’t wanted but was too good to dump went to the cottage – which, frankly, is getting somewhat jammed. To wit, I have a large portrait of St. Jerome hanging in my wet-slip boathouse. It keeps the beavers under control.

We are not yet bereft of furniture; we have four sofas and three coffee tables and two monstrous buffets. But probably no more than 1,000 books. Not bad.

That old leather suitcase finally became unhinged around Medicine Hat, and the portable typewriter was pawned for the final time in Winnipeg. And I’m not sure about that wash-and-wear shirt. I hope it rests in peace, for it served me well.

© 2012 Investment Executive. All rights reserved.