Reduce, reuse, recycle ... this stuff?

by Bob McCray

Our dry suits are little more than layers of duct tape by now (waistband, cowl and cuffs at least). Our white canvas tent has mildew spots that look like a Rorschach test, and our inflatable kayak seats go flat in 30 minutes. We need new silent sports equipment.  But, we don't have room for it. Our basement is a disaster.

For years, my wife and I have cleaned out our basement every spring. We'd carry everything up to the attic. Then a year later, we'd clean the attic and haul everything back down to the basement. We've never thrown anything out.

Our basement is stuff stacked on stuff – camping and paddling equipment piled on top of ski boots and poles; roller skis and roller blades jumbled with road bikes; and an ash-wood forest of cross-country skis. Meanwhile, our one-car garage is jam-packed with six old boats, both kayaks and canoes.

It was time to lighten up.

Our town picks up bulk trash in the alley twice a year. The problem is I can't let go of stuff unless I know it's going to a good home or will be recycled.

American Indians in the Northwest held potlatches – giant giveaway festivals where they unloaded everything they owned, from goat hair blankets, copper plates to dried venison.

That wouldn't work in the Midwest. Folks don't bite on something for nothing. Furthermore, with potlatches, gifts were reciprocated which defeats the purpose of reducing one's possessions.

To join in on our town's "big clean," I classified all our junk in three categories: 1) No questions asked, 2) On probation/may be worth something, and 3) Sentimental value.

No questions asked

The first category didn't take any thinking. Like a bounty hunter, I tracked down outdated guidebooks, an old nylon pup tent that was like sleeping in a sauna, an air mattress that went flat at 3 a.m. on a bed of acorns, and stacks of torn-out outdoor articles.

I found a home for what I could. An art student jumped at my old cameras, black-and-white photo development equipment, and a homemade waterproof camera container for underwater photography (made of wood with a glass window and a rubber glove thumb insert to press the shutter button). I kept Canoe Trails of Northeastern Wisconsin, but toted other books to the library, and gave a garage-size, screen-house tent to some neighbors that camp the Flambeau.

As silent sports folks, we aim to do the green thing. Recycling keeps hazardous materials out of the waste stream, saving our air, land and water. But recycling some sports-related stuff isn't easy. My vintage computers took forever to download trail maps, weather reports and e-mails with photos attached from our various outdoor clubs. They had to go. But, you can't mulch a computer. The lead, cadmium and mercury in them are environmental hazards. I had to hunt down a drop-off site.

Likewise, you can't just pour some silent sports maintenance stuff, like paint and chemicals, down the drain. So I boxed up old red epoxy canoe paint, magic-potion-in-a-can ski wax, rust remover and some leftover cans of sloppy two-step, waterproof glue I once used to build an outrigger for our sailing canoe.

Fortunately I found a new drop-off site that would take everything from aerosol paint cans to burned-out fluorescent bulbs. The Chicago Household Chemical and Recycling Center reuses old computers in a computer repair, job-training program for ex-offenders. (I also took some keyboards and monitors to www.PCSforschools.org.) It was a great feeling to unload.

On probation/may be worth something

I quickly learned what they mean when they refer to an attic treasure trove. You never know what will be valuable some day.

How about that November 1987 issue of Wisconsin Silent Sports with columns by Mitch Mode and Bill Hauda (on beer bellies and bad backs) and three pages of events (a recent issue had 30 pages). I also turned up the April 1987 farewell issue of The Runner magazine and the April 1996 Runner's World with its coverage of the 100th running of the Boston Marathon.

Another discovery: Foto Electric Football, a game from the 1940s – the ancestor of football video games. You place offense and defense cards on top of each other.  When you pull out the offense card, the play, lighted by an electric bulb, unfolds magically before your eyes. It couldn't get any better.

I run to music. I tape 6, 7 and 8 minute-mile beat tunes with a metronome. I used to record some of the music from my father's stack of old LP records in our attic. I'd have to run around the world 10 times to run out of music. So the records had to go.

But it turns out vinyl is coming back, and young, hip vinyl junkies abound. An old Beatles record can be worth $20,000. Elvis records are worth a fortune, too. But I'd rather be out running than handcuffed to the Internet and checking Osbourne's price guides. The LPs, therefore, are on probation.

Sentimental value

"Old wood, old wine, old books, old friends." I'd add old skis.

For many of us, this is the toughest category. How do you throw away memories, dreams and life's benchmarks? Your first canoe, a hand-carved mahogany backpack frame, your kids' running trophies and medals?

The latter can be donated and recycled at www.medals4mettle.org. Some organizations online accept trophies.

But what about our old bear-trap binding skis that carried us down so many happy trails, from the Scuppernong in South Kettle Moraine and the Wolf River in Wisconsin to Aspen Mountain and Montezuma Basin in Colorado?

 Last March, out on the local trail, a skier training for the Birkie rolled his eyes at my three-pin binding skis and army boots. Next to his elite racing skis, I was a living museum. I saw in his eyes, "Is this how they skied in the olden days when Native Americans walked this land?"

Martha Stewart reinvents "sentimentals." She makes ski mittens out of old sweaters. In Colorado, skiers make picket fences out of their old skis. I'm converting my erstwhile cable-binding skis into a ski rack to hold our many other three-pin binding skis. I hollowed out some old sports book to use as "safes" for valuables. It's never too late to recirculate.

Of the three categories, dealing with sentimentals takes the most creativity. One woman I read about secretly leaves her old "lovables" at other people's garage sales. Some suggest taking pictures of the sentimentals and then unloading them. I keep the brass plates from our children's running trophies before recycling them.

We're nowhere near finished, but as Longfellow said, "Something attempted, something done, earns a night's repose." Better yet, I just got the new drysuit top I ordered in the mail.

Bob McCray is a teacher and writer who lives with his wife in Evanston, Illinois.