We must be the same age. I'm still using the sleeping bag that I took to Spain and Morocco in 1974. I've washed mine (down with a nylon cover) many many times. Mine was state of the art, too, a lightweight thing from L.L. Bean that was good to 20 degrees. I use it now kayamping on islands.
I'm going to compost two things someday that I can't quite bring myself to do yet---my father's flight jacket from WW11 and my mother's mink stole from the early 60s. I did compost the mink hat that went with the stole.

You can give the mink to a wildlife re-habber or a rescuer of kittens for bedding.

When it's full of bird poopie or kitten pee, it'll compost faster.

I can't think of anything that I've been reluctant to compost.

You might be a compost wacko if you *like* to turn your personal relics & archives into compost!

It's not that I can't bring myself to do it, my wife won't let me...... compost her ;-)

But... I told her, if she dies first, its all about being a green, I think I will stock up on more carbon ;-)

and, of course ,... it goes without saying, if I even feel woozy, I am jumping into that pile ;-)

{{gwi:30780}}

{{gwi:30778}}

Holy cow, you guys really are compost crazy. Maybe I should rethink some of the stuff we own. I never thought of composting it. I guess I went to Europe in the wrong decade, the 80's. I didn't even use a sleeping bag =:) Isn't a flight jacket from WW11 a candidate for a museum or something?

Jon you're hilarious! I've never thought of composting DH. Hmmmm.

Where's Lloyd? I wonder if he got tired of the winter weather and hopped into his compost? Actually, he might be flooded =:(

"Where's Lloyd?"

Illness in family, had to scale back to just the essentials.

Lloyd

From the perspective of just finishing sorting through my recently passed Mother's belongings .... allocating to family members and then to the Goodwill/Salvation Army. Why don't you have the fun of composting that old 'friend', sleeping bag ... 'cause your kids won't really know what to do with it. Maybe take B4 & after pictures ... to tell the story of your old travel companion. [a la THE GIVING TREE by Shel Silverstein]

I'm sorry to hear about your mother, borderbarb, and Lloyd, about illness in your family.

I second annpat. But how neat that some of you have had such awesome experiences. In my 25 years, the farthest I have been is California.

Kim

Are bundles of old love letters, some with still lingering perfume, others with bits of faded flowers, considered browns?

And should I worry about heavy metals in the lipstick kiss marks?

I know that the silk ribbons that bind them won't degrade quickly.

annpat,

My grade school collected kapoc [milkweed pods] for flight jackets in WW11.

Oh, that's neat. I think that they also used kapoc in life jackets when I was a kid. I have a ton of WWII stuff of my Dad's. Some neat things---his Short Snorter (which is signed by a lot of people, including a Barbara Foley who would later become my mother) and a silk banner covered with script that offered a reward to any Chinese citizen who helped a downed U.S. pilot.

Just bundles, Dave? I've got footlockers of the things, minus the lipstick, of course.

Just to be pedantic real kapok comes from a tree. I wonder if they really used the milkweed pods or was it just a morale boosting exercise.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kapok tree

flora,

They used the fluff inside the pods as a flotation help....I have never heard otherwise.

Speaking of morale boosters....The government put out a colored booklet called Small Town USA which was sent by the thousands to our English speaking allies. This was to show them how one typical town was helping in the war effort at a time that Great Britain and Australia were highly threatened.

My town was selected and the persons taking the pictures and writing the story stayed at our house by night.

wayne_5 - kapok (from the trees) was used for life jackets and also for stuffing toys before synthetic fibres. Milkweed doesn't grow over here and all our Kapok was imported and came from the tree. But now I wonder how much of it was from milkweed. Did you take a look at the first link? The milkweed fluff seems to have been a substitute for the 'genuine article'.

Here is a link that might be useful: Milkweed 'kapok'

annpat,
Just curious,was your father a member of the Flying Tigers?
I ask because you said he had a silk scarf offering a reward for his safe return written in Chinese.
jb

My father was a pilot in the CBI theater. He flew the Hump in C-46s. I don't think that he was a member of the Flying Tigers. He was stationed in Burma. He was a crop duster in Oklahoma who joined the Army Air Corps when they put out a call for people to train pilots. The "Aluminum Trail" was a very dangerous air route and I'm very proud of him. He died in 1962 of stomach cancer when I was nine, and I'm haunted by a wartime newspaper article about him during which he raved about a new product called "DDT" which they spread around Indian villages to keep the mosquitoes down.

You don't know anything about a plane called 'My Assam Dragon" do you? I was once in touch with that pilot's daughter. I have photographs of her father's plane. She never met him; he died before she was born.

annpat - my Dad was in Burma too. But on the ground. He's still alive - 91 in August. He met Mum in India where she was nursing. That was after she'd worked in the East End of London through the Blitz. She's still with us too.... just about. Neither of them ever talked about it much. Ordinary people in extraordinary times.

Really, flora? That's interesting. I have hundreds of photographs my father took of the area at which he was stationed. I wonder if your father's in any of them. ~

How wonderful you still have your parents. My father would have been 100 last Nov. and my mother turned 88 the same month. I am grateful that she is in good health.

Annpat,

I can't say I do. The only thing I know about any of this is from what I've read over the years. It started with reading 'God is My Co-pilot'.
I did Google 'My Assam Dragon', and found this link.
http://closereach.com/sir/vetfullmer.html
They truly were the Greatest Generation..

JB

Here is a link that might be useful: My Assam Dragon

You know the title is very misleading. Here i thought some one wanted to rid a neighborhood of bratty kids and adding to the soil at the same time, but no its you all are just reminiscent. HAHAHA