Clean sweep

I think the phrase that most sums up the weekend is, “So where does a book on koalas go?”
That is about the level of common sense questioning that evolves from a group of siblings banding together to “Clean Sweep” their parents’ house.
For those of you not addicted to TLC television network, “Clean Sweep” is a show where folks come into a residence and basically pull everything out and start from scratch. They organize, redecorate and consolidate the house, and throw out gobs of stuff. For those of you who have never seen the show, turn on TLC at any moment of the day, and it will be on. Sometimes, I am pretty sure they run a couple of episodes at a time.
On most of the shows, the house they are working on looks less like a house, and more like a place where someone dumped 10,000 storage sheds. Rooms are impassable, closets are so full they won’t open, and people are often trapped under the rubble. (I may be making up that last part.)
Fortunately, my parents’ house was not like the ones on the “Clean Sweep.” Rather, it was the standard house for a couple with four grown children. I feel pretty confident that, had each of us just taken our stuff as we left, we could have avoided the weekend.
The first thing we did was to take down all of the pictures, clear off the shelves, empty cabinets, etc. Everything would be sorted, cleaned, organized, etc. The two of the biggest piles that developed were of books and of my mother’s collectibles. (They were originally dubbed “knickknacks,” but I for one just can’t bring myself to say that, so I made the phrase verboten for the weekend. It was an edict that, despite my firm delivery tone, was not adhered to.)
The book pile was massive. Everyone in my family has always been a book junkie, as stands to reason for a family littered with writers and editors through the generations. But some of the books, well, maybe had a great purpose in a previous time, but were ready to move on to be enjoyed by others. (Hence the “koala” comment.)
The knick-kn...er...statue...piece...thingees presented a different challenge. My mother has several collections, and with collections, once folks realize you have a particular kind of item, the collection begins to multiply. For my mother, it’s owls and turtles. The turtles I understand, since my father is a biologist and studies turtles. Owls? No idea where that started. At one point, I asked my sisters, semi-seriously, “What happens if one day, she opens a present, sees an owl and just snaps – ENOUGH WITH THE OWLS ALREADY! I HATE THEM! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, I SAY SOMETHING NICE ABOUT AN OWL JUST TO BE POLITE 30 YEARS AGO AND THIS IS WHAT I GET!?!?! A CERAMIC OWL BREEDING GROUND?!?!?!) (Editor’s note: Mom assures us she loves the owls.)
So after a few hours, we had accomplished the following: We had taken every possession of my parents and put it in piles around the house. So not exactly putting the “clean” in “clean sweep.”
After a while, there was a lot of breakable stuff on the floor, so my wife and sisters decided it was time for my brothers-in-law and me to, in essence, go away. We were banished to the basement, where we were tasked with tackling my dad’s card collection. You see, my dad is a sentimentalist, and he collects beautiful greeting cards. Ha! Little joke there. Actually, what my dad collects are playing cards. I would bet it is one of the largest collections of airline playing cards in the world. It’s certainly the largest I’ve seen. Upon his return, I told him I now know why Delta does give out playing cards: He has them all. So Jim, Keith and I began devising some cool display options for his cards. He has thousands of decks of cards, so we decided to start out with the basics: Domestic airlines, international airlines, and Delta airlines. (For what it’s worth, if you have ever received a deck of cards, I will bet you my dad has the same one. A dozen times over.)
Using our vast guy talents, we fashioned some very cool display boxes (yes, so my wife pointed out that my old insect collection display cases would work perfectly, but it still took ingenuity on our part to figure out how to hang them).
At the conclusion of day one, the house resembled one in which small explosive devices had been set off in each room. My sister assured me that, over the next two days, rooms would begin to come to order. I will share the conclusion with you next week. And let you know where the koala book goes.