Schumi,

Send me your jacket. I'm pretty good at resurrecting pretty badly sun/dry damaged leather. I might not be able to make it nice again, but I guarantee I can make it much, much better than it is right now.

Consider it a favor among friends.

angela

I was wondering if this was the case or not.

When I went to college, my parents threw away my 72 Fiat 850 Spyder.

Parents almost always know best.

Angela- one day when I trek back to Missouri and bring it back with me, I may take you up on that. Thanks.



So I'm still thinking about this this morning. The thing is.. I remember how every time I wore that jacket she always brought up how she thought it was ugly and hated it. And every time I said how I liked it for a whole load of reasons I could never explain.

She just really had it out for that jacket. The more I think about it, the more I think she threw it out on purpose. I mean obviously she threw it out on purpose... but I mean I think she really made an effort to go find this jacket and be sure that it died a horrible death.



Whatever, I need not worry about this crap in my life right now. I almost wish I had never have brought it up on the phone and just forgotten about it for 30 years until no one remembered what happened to it. I'd feel better.

Apologies if I sounded harsh - parents usually know how to push our buttons and we each have different ones. And often they don't even know they're pushing them. In the final analysis, this too shall pass.

If this is the worst thing going on in you life, or the worst thing that will come between you and your parents, you are a lucky man.
Steve

So furthering my own analysis of why this pissed me off so much... I've also come to another self-realization-


I don't have a lot of things. I've moved so many times, I keep very very few material possessions. Some people (like my parents) have housefuls of a lifetime of things. When I moved here to LA, I had two suitcases. I bought a car. Two suitcases, and a car. I later bought a couch, and this rounds out all of my possessions that I own that are here with me in LA. Back home I left my 924S, an old stereo, and two boxes of clothes and other things, including that jacket.

That's all I have. Every piece means something, or else I would have gotten rid of it in another move. I don't keep things that are meaningless (I don't acquire them in the first place). So I think that is another underlying reason why this pissed me off so much. Unlike them, I don't have the luxury to own many things. I'm not dirt poor, it's just how I've had to live for the last 6 years, moving all the time, living in small apartments.

I think you've gotten the responses you have from some of us that have not had stuff, then had stuff, then for any variety of reasons (*cough* divorce/stupdity/etc *cough*) have lost or shed that stuff. And for most of us, the realization is that it is just stuff...

In the end though, we all come to realize that our parents are flawed. And flaws are genetic :D

Schumi????

Ah.... So.... Ah... Um... I... Ah... Ah... Oh boy.... http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1285952700.jpg

Hey, just for you to feel better. LA people don't wear that type of jacket anymore. Also, you can get a similar look at swapmeets for $30 bucks. :D

When I was dating my wife she drove a '64 1/2 Mustang. I worked in a garage so I did all the body work and a friend in the paint shop did a nice respray for me.

It looked so nice.... that my girlfriends mother sold the car after her daughter went back to college! "...Mom... where's my car?..."

it's not like they skipped your wedding......like mine did.......
Just to put it in perspective.....
You're aloud to be upset though.....it was a cool jacket :D

I wish you wrote this to Joan Rivers.

As someone who's been married for 16 year with a house, garage, and attic full of things, I envy your lack of possessions.

"Only when he has ceased to need things can a man truly be his own master and so really exist."

-Anwar al- Sadat

I can't help but feel she knew exactly what she was doing..
she didn't like..
didn't think you looked good in it...
she heard you when you said..
this is special..
she knew & did it anyway..
in the end there will be more or another jacket..
perhaps even the lost one...
but you only get one Mom...
and as a previous P said..
you will want to trade that jacket for another hug & I love you..

Rika

It's not... there's a range of ages on each side of the discussion.

Mike had every right and expectation to expect nothing in the small pile of stuff he left with his parents would be arbitrarily tossed out.

He especially had every right to assume the jacket, which he had expressed a special affection for, wouldn't be arbitrarily tossed out.

It's amazing to me how many people here have condescendingly piled on, telling him he was valuing a material possession too much.

He wasn't. He had just found out his mom had it put on a frickin' scarecrow.

Many here have said they experienced similar or greater losses and got over it/moved on.

Do you think Mike wouldn't have? Those who have said "I moved on" are forgetting how they felt when they first found out about their loss.

Last night, Mike had just found out about this.

There's your perspective.

And... we have now seen further evidence (as if we needed any) that Angela Rocks! :D

My Grandfater was a Naval Academy grad, career Navy. Everything he had when he joined fit in a trunk. My Dad was career Navy. My Grandfather threw all of my father's stuff away with two exceptions, a G&S surfboard my dad bought the summer before he joined, and all of the Dinky toys he had given my Dad during all of his years of travel. My dad was pretty upset, and it would be brought up every once in a while, but it never really came between them.

I moved out of my parents house for good in 1996 when I graduated from college. In 2009 while my parents were visiting, a moving van showed up in front of our house. In it, were all of my old things, and some things from my Grandparents house, incuding a bar that was made at Pearl Harbor, when my Grandfather had command of a Sub Squadron. My parents hadn't thrown a single thing away, and everything had been packed up.

My dad had known how much it had bothered him, so, he kept everything that was mine, even when moving in 2000 to a different house about a mile away. They decided it was time I kept it all, and shared my toys and stuff with my kids.

When you get older Schumi, you will do like my dad, and keep your kids things.

As for the jacket, just keep your eyes open for one, maybe in a size bigger.

I think often we get too wrapped up in our "things". Yes, they cost money sometimes, but they are all just molecules, and can be replaced.

Have a good one, and I will keep my eyes open for another jacket like that for you as well, you never know.

Bill

And I think most of us agree with that statement. I think the question is: Is it worth risking estrangement from an elderly parent to get this point across?

It's okay to express strong feelings to family members, yes. Unless they're extremely dysfunctional, they'll eventually gain perspective, apologize, and get over it. :)

When I was young I collected comic books. Lots of them, of a few particular series...(mostly Conan) Some of them, quite valuable. I remember buying one when I was 14, maybe 15, for about $100 back then. Saved and saved to buy it... Others were $10-$20, out of print graphic novels, first print books by my favourite author stuff like that. I had the first appearance of the Conan character from 1932 a first printing "Strange tales" pulp magazine. I had signed and number Boris Vallejo and Frazetta prints, and a hand drawn picture by a comic book artist done at a sci-fi convention during a "how to draw my characters" discussion for another series I collected.

When I moved to Virginia in 1998 for a short while (with the plan of returning home) it all vanished. My mother had thrown it all out, including my leather trench coat, which she burned.... those were around $400 at that time.

My first good guitar was destroyed when someone stored in in a wet attic for months....