It was my father’s favorite reply when my siblings and I would say we wanted something: Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. Then he would say he heard that from his parents when he had asked for something.
His parents were farmers near Champaign, Illinois, in the 1920s and ’30s when he was growing up. They did without more than I could imagine, really, when he would tell the story again–running water, electricity, and central heat, for starters. His father went broke along the way–one winter they burned corn in the heating stove because they couldn’t sell the corn for enough to buy coal.
When we kids left the house and didn’t ask for much, the saying I heard the most was ‘Twas ever thus and twill be ever so.’ I think he liked to say ’twill be.’ He stopped following his own advice to not buy much. He and Mom got comfortable and enjoyed having stuff.
Dad lived in a two-bedroom apartment in an old-folks apartment building when he died. When we cleaned it out, we found lots of stuff, some of it unopened. I guess he felt good knowing he could afford a gross of ballpoint pens even if he didn’t write much. And he saved the pen he got from the Olympic Committee, for example, and the next year the neat little calculator. He loved office supplies and electronic toys.
He had probably a hundred 50-sheet legal pads–he’d buy more every time they went on sale. I don’t think he ever pictured himself using that up. I decided I would start using up all my stuff in his honor–and as much of his stuff as it made any sense to even try.
I got serious around 2015. I had about 80 T-shirts saying I was an AYSO coach, fan of the Cleveland baseball team, and Hummel figurine enthusiast (I got that one from my mom). They dated from the early 1990s. I have about 40 now. I have some stories and some photos of this project, and I’ll keep you posted.
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converselyspeaking 