The things in life that people value.

bobcat

bobcat

Well-known Member
Location
Northern Calif
I had a neighbor who was a car buff. He had 2 GTO's (One was supercharged), a Corvette, a Cobra, and two Ramchargers.
He had two car lifts installed in his garage so he could park 4 of his cars in there (Two over the top of the others). He was a single guy, and he tinkered on these cars everyday, but the muscle cars rarely left the vicinity. He may have felt someone would damage them or steal them, IDK. He probably had close to 500k wrapped up in all the vehicles.

Like me, he was an early riser, and every morning when I went for my walk, often I would see him working on his cars, so I would take a few minutes to chat. We both loved muscle cars and had a shared taste in oldies music. This acquaintance went on for several years. To my knowledge, he never exercised. Sadly, one morning he had a heart attack and died before they could get him to the hospital. A couple of his vehicles went to his grown daughter, and the rest were sold off.

Since that day, I have often wondered, if he had known what was to befall him, would he have changed his lifestyle, or the things he valued? He loved his cars, but rarely went anywhere in them, and in the end, most were just sold. He had lots of money, but never went on any vacations, and to my knowledge, never dated. Perhaps that's how he would have preferred to go, but when I try to understand it, it just seems sad because I am seeing it through my value system. It often seems strange how others live their life, or what they place so much value in.
 

I am more of a sentimental item collector now, which may be bad for my family when I leave this world.
I have every letter and card my youngest son ever sent me from the day he joined the
Army to begin his LEO career till now. And trinkets and things all the kids made for me over the years.
After seeing and hearing about how families got mad after a death of a parent, I decided to prevent as much
as possible beforehand. I looked at anything worth value and disbursed them to family members when I moved
here so each were sure to get their beloved item. I didn't care if it was because of sentimental reasons or because they
thought it was worth something.
I do think the family is happy I chose this route. And I got to see the delight on faces when they received it.
 
Passion was the first word that came to mind when reading the OP. He had a passion for his cars.
I don't feel that strongly about anything. I just have certain things I enjoy in my free time, such as writing (for fun, not to sell) and my movie collection which I keep adding to; always looking for more. I haven't been good a doing volunteer work, but I've made a commitment to do some this month for the church food distribution program. Will see how that goes.

About the man in the OP, you wrote: "To my knowledge, he never exercised." That can't be good. But for some people, exercising itself is a passion. Maybe there's some good in that, if not carried to extremes. I do exercise, but I doubt that I'll ever be guilty of doing too much! :ROFLMAO:
 
MACKTEXAS said:
I haven't been good a doing volunteer work, but I've made a commitment to do some this month for the church food distribution program. Will see how that goes.

About the man in the OP, you wrote: "To my knowledge, he never exercised." That can't be good. But for some people, exercising itself is a passion. Maybe there's some good in that, if not carried to extremes. I do exercise, but I doubt that I'll ever be guilty of doing too much! :ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...
I volunteered at a food bank. One week the fresh green beans were covered in brown spots, and the strawberry containers had moldy strawberries in them. I knew from my daughter's botany professor that these were not edible. I fought the good fight (which took an hour) and got the director to agree to ditch the strawberries. I didn't mention the green beans - I just tossed them. Lucky for me we had green beans fit for people to eat or I'd still be at the food bank being firm and unyielding.

This was a great food bank. But no matter how great, it is a disservice to the clients to offer them rotting or moldy produce. So if you find that at the food bank you are going to work at, stand your ground!

Exercise used to be my passion. I participated in sports, machines, and aerobics at least 21 hours a week. I played racquetball -- that was my #1 passion. We luckily belonged to a great club in Boston - not a country club, just a really swell place for people with the exercise passion.

Before I got married and moved to the Frozen North, my passion was dancing. Everyone in my office went dancing at our favorite club at least 4 nights a week. I had to bring my friends because I was the only female in my department. Sometimes we got to go to clubs that country music bands - because I loved dancing there too.
 
My late husband’s passion was his cars. But he used them. He raced NHRA his entire lifetime. He built as much of his cars as he possibly could. He was still turning wrenches on them until he became too weak with cancer. That was his life and that was what he enjoyed to spend his money on.

My passion is my horses. I have bought and paid for my own horses since I was 12 years old, 66+ years.

My current horse who is somewhere between 29 and 31 years old, will be my last one. I recognize I am not in physical condition to keep going to the barn every day. If I can’t take care of my own horses, I don’t need to have them, but it will greatly affect me mentally, emotionally, and no doubt physically because I will have no reason to get up and get outside and exercise.
 
Some people enjoy socializing and some do not. The non-socializers like to stay to themselves while the socializing type can't get enough interaction.

This guy with his cars preferred his own company to that of others.

You notice that while he was okay talking to you, he didn't form any closer bond with you beyond acquaintance.

That was his comfort zone.
 
MACKTEXAS said:
I just have certain things I enjoy in my free time, such as writing (for fun, not to sell) and my movie collection which I keep adding to; always looking for more.:ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...
Have you seen My Blue Heaven (Steve Martin)? I watched it so many times that my husband memorized the entire script. He nearly became tongueless when he started saying the lines along with the actors while I was watching the movie!

The other movie my husband did that with was Pretty Woman. I watched it many times, and I have to admit my husband had a prodigious memory. He probably couldn't help memorizing those scripts. Heck, he probably celebrated when I started watching a few sitcoms. At least the scripts changed every week.
 
As most folks here already know, classic ocean liners are one of my passions. My collection of rare, out-of-print, autographed books are the most valuable thing I own. I've seen prices for some of them from third-party sellers on Amazon and been surprised.

I always told my kids that when I die to NOT just cart them off to Goodwill, that they're worth quite a bit. But lately I've been thinking of selling the most valuable ones in the interest of trying to pay down some of my debt. After all, they've been sitting on my shelves for decades.

The only problem is, there are several I haven't read yet! For years they were literally locked away in bookshelves, safe from sticky fingers, crumbs, and potential juice spills.

Now the kids are all grown and living independently, so I've been reading them and then may try to sell a few.
 
OldFeller said:
Some people enjoy socializing and some do not. The non-socializers like to stay to themselves while the socializing type can't get enough interaction.

This guy with his cars preferred his own company to that of others.

You notice that while he was okay talking to you, he didn't form any closer bond with you beyond acquaintance.

That was his comfort zone.
Click to expand...
Yeah, he was kind of a mixed bag. We took his Corvette to a car show, and he seemed comfortable talking with others (About cars anyway), but in other ways, he was somewhat of a strange cat (In my view). He was a bit of a conspiracy theorist, and had some rather radical views, but was friendly.

I guess one of the things that didn't make sense to me is he had enough money to afford the best medical care, but I really don't think he trusted doctors all that much (Which may have cost him his life). I think he felt that most of them are in the hip pocket of the drug industry, and he preferred to be his own doctor.
 
KSav said:
As most folks here already know, classic ocean liners are one of my passions. My collection of rare, out-of-print, autographed books are the most valuable thing I own. I've seen prices for some of them from third-party sellers on Amazon and been surprised.

I always told my kids that when I die to NOT just cart them off to Goodwill, that they're worth quite a bit. But lately I've been thinking of selling the most valuable ones in the interest of trying to pay down some of my debt. After all, they've been sitting on my shelves for decades.

The only problem is, there are several I haven't read yet! For years they were literally locked away in bookshelves, safe from sticky fingers, crumbs, and potential juice spills.

Now the kids are all grown and living independently, so I've been reading them and then may try to sell a few.
Click to expand...
I guess, in many cases, we value things because we are invested in them, not just money wise, but time wise. Others may not see the value there, but in a similar way, our children fit that concept. Part of us is in them, both genetically and the effort of raising them.

In a similar vein, your collection is your baby. You nurtured it, crafted it, and made it into something you felt was special. Even so, perhaps selling the collection at some point just makes sense because you might as well make use of that money before saying farewell, especially if you don't think anyone else in the family would be that attached to it.
 
KSav said:
As most folks here already know, classic ocean liners are one of my passions. My collection of rare, out-of-print, autographed books are the most valuable thing I own. I've seen prices for some of them from third-party sellers on Amazon and been surprised.

I always told my kids that when I die to NOT just cart them off to Goodwill, that they're worth quite a bit. But lately I've been thinking of selling the most valuable ones in the interest of trying to pay down some of my debt. After all, they've been sitting on my shelves for decades.

The only problem is, there are several I haven't read yet! For years they were literally locked away in bookshelves, safe from sticky fingers, crumbs, and potential juice spills.

Now the kids are all grown and living independently, so I've been reading them and then may try to sell a few.
Click to expand...
My hubby has collections of many things and last week he came in telling me he had looked up his stereo system and speakers online and this is now worth 3k, this is worth 1k and so on and I just sat there listening to him list all his stuff and waited patiently...then told him "Please do write all that down and who to contact to sell them because if I outlive you I may not know my name by then"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top