The Value of Old Things

[Bill Ryan]

Dear Friends,

A fun exchange on the Pema thread, in which in passing I'd shared a photo of my old beaten-up (but still serviceable!) hiking shoes, has inspired this thread.

I'm certain that many other readers may have delightful stories to share about Old Things which they treasure and hold on to. And of course, valuing the past is an integral part of The Human Condition... old photos, old books, old paintings, old builldings, the wisdom of old people, and of course everything in the vast field of archeology and human history.

Here's just a start.

This is the photo that led to this: my wonderful hiking shoes, only 8 years old but which might have done a couple of thousand miles or more, and which I very dearly love. You can see how I've repaired them (a little!) with glued on patches cut from an old inner tube.



Many will know about my old 4x4 (a 1986 Izuzu Trooper that's now done 300,000 miles). It has no heating, A/C, or radio, and of course no engine computer or GPS. It's as simple, strong and reliable as an old farm tractor. Here it is in the kind of conditions it loves best:



And I thought I'd should share some other photos of things that have served me wonderfully over the years.

My indestructible Helly-Hansen fleece jacket, 35 years old: (They don't make them any more: if you see one on eBay, grab it)



My Berghaus Gore-Tex storm jacket, the same age:



My Berghaus backback, 40 years old:


My Mountain Equipment winter jacket, 46 years old: (It's patched with what's known as Spinnaker Tape, super-strong ripstop tape used for mending sails on sailboats)



And finally (for now!), a pair of Julbo mountain glasses which I found in a snowdrift in the Canadian Rockies 23 years ago. (Who knows how old they may be!)




~~~

Who else is holding on to beloved old things which they treasure? Do please share some fun photos.

[petra]

What a fun thread! I don't have anything worth taking pictures of except this rock named Lucifer which I inherited from my mom. I threw it away.. which is what I do with a lot of things! It's the oldest picture in my phone.

I imagine the rock itself is pretty old. I threw it away because I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't attached to it I know where I threw it but I'm not going looking for my rock.

I guess it was kind of special to me which is why I keep this picture. Edit: in case you can't tell it also says $10 on it

[RunningDeer]

Mara says, “And me…I’m about 80 in dog years.” (13 years old?)

[Ewan]

Judging by the pics in the opening post that hat may have seen a few dawns too.

[Sue (Ayt)]

Here's an old 1969 song that suits you, Bill.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=T4k3fKPccWM

I cherish my old kitchen tools, like my potato masher and egg beater and spatulas. Some of those old tools were my mother's, but they are strong and do the job better than the new ones. And my cast iron fry pans - guess they'll last forever?

Same for the old hand tools that I have and are so superior.

I volunteer at our local second-hand store and old tools and utensils are always in demand.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Just a gentle question. By what metric are we gauging the value of such "old things"? Why do we keep something that has clearly seen better days? Is it truly because "they don't make 'em like they used to" and they're worth patching and glueing and stitching back together -- or, is it sentimentality?

Just like Sue, there are multiple pans and utensils in my mother's kitchen that have been around since the 1960s. She could never part with them, even though they're falling to pieces. A number I'd love to throw out. When I cook with those pans, I often burn myself on the handles that have lost their protective sheaths. I did persuade her to part with an ancient frying pan a while back. It was crusted over with black deposits, some of which were older than me! The new one I bought to replace it? Infinitely superior in every possible sense.

Sometimes older is better. But sometimes brand new is better still.

I would argue that each of the examples you posted, Bill, could probably be replaced with new, up-to-date, and perfectly satisfactory equivalents. Costs notwithstanding. Retaining the old to save your pennies is a sensible strategy where necessary, and no one would argue otherwise. But there's always a line!

[Harmony]

I have quite a lot of older items I don't want to part with, but I have given a lot away over the years. Some is kitchenware that was my Mother's, like Le Creuset pans, one is a frypan that was made when they were originally made in Belgium and the surface is way superior than the newer ones. I have Grandmother's jewelry, just mostly costume jewelry, and special gifts that I received over the years or hand made art. Somehow they hold an energy of a time, a memory, a connection, and seem precious like photos that instantly have a way of taking you back to a specific point in time and consciousness that feels like now. A beautiful pet, a holiday, like music and certain scents can do as well. I like things that are made well and last, especially in this throw away society where things aren't respected much along with the service they provided without the gratefulness. If all things hold a kind of consciousness or connection to the all what is the message we are sending?

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)
Just a gentle question. By what metric are we gauging the value of such "old things"? Why do we keep something that has clearly seen better days? Is it truly because "they don't make 'em like they used to" and they're worth patching and glueing and stitching back together -- or, is it sentimentality?

Just like Sue, there are multiple pans and utensils in my mother's kitchen that have been around since the 1960s. She could never part with them, even though they're falling to pieces. A number I'd love to throw out. When I cook with those pans, I often burn myself on the handles that have lost their protective sheaths. I did persuade her to part with an ancient frying pan a while back. It was crusted over with black deposits, some of which were older than me! The new one I bought to replace it? Infinitely superior in every possible sense.

Sometimes older is better. But sometimes brand new is better still.

I would argue that each of the examples you posted, Bill, could probably be replaced with new, up-to-date, and perfectly satisfactory equivalents. Costs notwithstanding. Retaining the old to save your pennies is a sensible strategy where necessary, and no one would argue otherwise. But there's always a line!

Mark, here's my best answer, in this beautiful extract from Robert Pirsig's classic and important book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (in the library here). I may have read it a dozen times in my long life, the first time 50 years ago when I was a university student. It had an enormous impact on me.

For those unfamiliar, don't be baffled and put off by the title. It's a first-person narrative travelogue about a motorcycle journey across 1960s America with his son, page-turning easy and super-fun to read. But interwoven is a deep work of philosophy in which Robert Pirsig examines the entire concept of Quality, and why humans consider some things 'good' and other things 'not good'.

Early in the book, when he's riding his motorcycle, he talks about his old leather gloves. The entire short section is a perfect intro to the entire discussion about human values which is in almost every page of the book.

~~~

My watch says six-thirty. The old glove above it looks like it’s got frost on it, but I guess it’s just residues from the soaking last night. Good old beat-up gloves. They are so stiff now from the cold I can hardly straighten my hand out.

I talked yesterday about caring. I care about these moldy old riding gloves. I smile at them flying through the breeze beside me because they have been there for so many years and are so old and so tired and so rotten there is something kind of humorous about them. They have become filled with oil and sweat and dirt and spattered bugs and now when I set them down flat on a table, even when they are not cold, they won’t stay flat.

They’ve got a memory of their own. They cost only three dollars and have been restitched so many times it is getting impossible to repair them, yet I take a lot of time and pains to do it anyway because I can’t imagine any new pair taking their place. That is impractical, but practicality isn’t the whole thing with gloves or with anything else.

~~~

There, he said it. The last sentence has stayed with me all my life.

Practicality isn’t the whole thing with gloves or with anything else.

Pirsig, a man of immense intellect and humanity, understood these things better than many of us do in 2026. The book is all about his view of the world, and he was focused entirely on what makes life's experiences valuable, treasured, and worth striving for, worth living for.

[Ewan]

Rather like Mark (Star Mariner) I put this attachment down to sentimentality more than anything else but have to also conclude there may well be something beyond/above that.

When I was on the cusp of becoming 19yrs of age I found something that was beyond explanation. Please let me set the scene. I was living in my Grandfathers cottage in the highlands of Scotland around 850' above sea level. Not very high at all but enough at that location to have a noticeable difference in weather to, say, coastal regions. There were no neighbours as such and no-one would be using the path from door to gate and back again other than myself, that path was made from flagstones. Not the kind that you'd buy in a garden centre to make a patio but natural stone ones, all different shapes. The floor in the cottage was made from the same stone.

I was leaving (07:55) to go to work, a 1hr walk on a single track road that wound its way up the side of a hill before a fairly steep decline to the place of work, a distillery that made malt whiskey. It was late January and, unusually for the time of year, free of snow when I found, right in the middle of the path, a strange spherical stone that didn't belong there and was clearly not native to the location. The colour was totally out of keeping with any natural stone in the whole region. It was brown on one hemisphere and a milky beige on the other, it was not a clear delineation but the blending area was not large either.

A mystery! I carried that stone with me all the way to work, sometimes studying it and sometimes safe in my pocket. Over the following years I tried many ways to break it, so curious about its composition. I could not crack it, I could not scratch it (including hacksaw), I could find no way to mark or change it. It was not particularly heavy, it did not seem super robust, yet I couldn't find a chink in it's armour so to speak.

I still had that stone at the age of 45 in Thailand, it had been with me on my Australian journey, 26-28 yrs of age. It was reaching for 30 years in my possession when, almost on a whim, I threw it away as a silly attachment. The following day I was down on my hands and knees trying to find it again. I never did.

That to me is almost the definition of an attachment, I missed it once I no longer had it. Yet it was also more, it remained a mystery. Where had it come from? What was it made of? As I recall that story I still wonder now, what the heck was that thing?

[Casey Claar]

Interestingly -at least to me >>

I arrived here on the planet at the very cusp between the "build things to last" and the "disposable" eras.

For what I feel are more spiritual reasons, beginning with YEAR ONE here I have moved around a lot ( A LOT ). In my adult years, at first I would store my belongings, to later set up house with these things. It just never happened. The items would stay in storage, cost me a good deal of money, and never be right for the new place, once I landed squarely somewhere. It wasn't long before I caught on, and began to give everything away at the time of a move. Selling the items never made sense. It was more efficient and effective to give them away. There was always somewhere for them to go. I also do not have the tendency to accumulate -my dad used to call me a "dissipater", he did not mean it in a good way -but were I to call myself this I certainly would. I realize the balance - the zero point - I have always been apt to aim/rest at. If I bring home a few shirts, a few shirts also go out *as an example. So .... I do not think I have anything that remains here with me that is old.......with one exception. A few old family photos, some of which go back to the time when photography in its current form first surfaced ( 1822 ).

Here are some fun ones of my maternal Gs

________________________________

[RunningDeer]

As I experiment with different ways of living, I find myself letting go of what I no longer need. These days, I’m down to a hand mixer, a coffee pot, an electric kettle, a hot plate and two air fryers. I even donated most of my Le Creuset cookware, keeping only three pieces.

As I grow older, the meaning of less is more becomes clearer. It’s not just about owning fewer things or making room for a simpler life. It’s also about releasing the things that once served a purpose, including the things that helped me heal. The hardest letting go of all is recognizing that something can be essential to my healing without it needing to remain part of my life forever.

And yet, some things stay...

Since 1973, I’ve kept a promise: I would never give away the rocking chair that a dear old friend gave me.

Some things I can release. Others I keep not because I need them, but because of what they mean to me.

[Sue (Ayt)]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Mark, here's my best answer, in this beautiful extract from Robert Pirsig's classic and important book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (in the library here). I may have read it a dozen times in my long life, the first time 50 years ago when I was a university student. It had an enormous impact on me.

For those unfamiliar, don't be baffled and put off by the title. It's a first-person narrative travelogue about a motorcycle journey across 1960s America with his son, page-turning easy and super-fun to read. But interwoven is a deep work of philosophy in which Robert Pirsig examines the entire concept of Quality, and why humans consider some things 'good' and other things 'not good'.

And wouldn't you know - today at the Thrift Store someone donated that very book. So I happily put it out in a front place of our book section, and the very next person who came in was a young man who immediately grabbed it and said he was intending to take a long bike trip, and this was perfect for him! Said he wanted to find himself. (All our books sell for 25c)
Just another little magic coincidence that made me smile.

[Sue (Ayt)]

The joke I recently posted on our "You must Laugh" thread kind of fits here, as to the planned obsolescence phenomena that developed rapidly from about the 70's on.
Quantity/$$$ over quality/pride in craftmanship is mostly the norm.
Consume.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=d6SPV4GZp-U

[Mike Gorman]

I can reinforce the value, and brilliance of that novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I think Bill and I share many points of development, even though we are both very different in terms of life style and disposition - such an important, practical description of the true nature of "Value", those aspects of our lives which deliver to us the best returns in terms of usefulness, and the ability to achieve our outcomes-most importantly that offer us the maximum enjoyment from our projects/dreams/aspirations. We are told to respond and judge everything in accordance with the best outcomes for others, corporations, billionaires, politicians and social architects who would dictate the shape of our lives. Value and worth can mean vastly different things to each of us, but this work from Robert Pirzig is truly worth your time and attention if you are a person who values truth and the worthwileness of different tools/products and ideas. For sure.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by RunningDeer (here)
Mara says, “And me…I’m about 80 in dog years.” (13 years old?)

13 years and 9 months (give or take). Depending on which doggie-years > human-years conversion chart you use, she's about 85 or maybe even older. (But when a mountain dog's had as active a life as Mara has, the rules may cease to apply! )

~~~

Mark wrote above:

Sometimes older is better. But sometimes brand new is better still.

I responded with a wonderful quote from Robert Pirsig about his aged and beloved motorcycle gloves, in which he concluded that

Practicality isn’t the whole thing with gloves or with anything else.

But even Pirsig might have conceded that this doesn't apply to shoes, which have to absorb tens of thousands of repeated impacts against hard and sometimes very rough rocky ground.

Back in 2019, the eventual effect on my Mark 1 old hiking shoes was this, which I shared on the Pema thread a few days ago:



Well, I don't know what it is with my left big toe, but almost exactly the same thing has just happened to my now very battered Mark 2 replacement pair, now 7 years old. I'd told Casey here that I thought they'd last a few more months, but now I'm hoping they might last just a few more days.



When the new Mark 3 shoes arrive, I think at the end of this coming week, (with immense thanks to Casey and one other anonymous kind member — you know who you are! ) I'll proudly showcase them and tip my (very old) hat to Mark that yes, sometimes brand new really is better.



~~~



Everyone reading this, please do continue to share some photos of your own beautiful old things!

[petra]

Out of all the things on the forum to get excited about, I'm most looking forward to seeing Bills new shoes!

I asked my boyfriend this question and he has a neck chain that means a lot to him. No point in posting pictures of it.. it's a typical gold chain he got for his graduation.

For me I guess my jewelry holds the most sentimental value.

I threw away my graduation ring while I was going through psychosis. It meant a lot to me but I don't really regret it. I also threw away a watch I was attached to as well. Something told me to "watch out" and I thought it meant for me to throw my watch out (ha ha). The ring I threw away because I was sick of going in circles. It had my name "Petra" engraved on it too.

The ring I have now was belong to my mom. I also have her wedding ring which I treasure.

All of these items.. to me.. are "priceless". You can't put a "value" on them.

That being said, I don't like the feeling of being too attached to material stuff. It just seems like a recipe for heartbreak. When I sold my house, it was "as is" which included so much old junk I didn't care about anymore. I'm a minimalist and getting rid of so much stuff was so freeing.

[RunningDeer]

For me, holding on to things sometimes means holding on to the past. Here are two occasions where letting go opened the door to new stories.

Example one:

Scott, the carpenter, drove off after finishing the new deck and stairs. He had also dug out the surrounding area to remove a huge slab that had served as the bottom step, making way for the new asphalt walkway.

With the stairs gone, I couldn’t step outside until the project was finished at the end of the day. That’s when I saw it. The heart at the bottom of the stairs.

Years ago, I had buried it as part of a closure ceremony after my son passed away.

Example Two:

I buried a crystal beneath a large bush to the left of the deck stairs. (see photo above) It was part of a ceremony to mark the end of an era. I buried it in the soil, then covered it again with the layers of stone used for drainage.

One morning, while shoveling a fresh batch of snow, I caught a glimpse of the crystal out of the corner of my eye. A week earlier, I had remembered the crystal and wondered if burying it had been too extreme an act. Then I forgot about it.

I’m glad this old friend had returned for a stay.

[Inversion]

Bill should start a GoFundMe for a new wardrobe.

Here's an interesting list of really old things.

science.howstuffworks

Contents:

Oldest Piece of Gum- 5,000 years old

Oldest Footwear- 5,500 years old

Oldest Mask- 9,000 years old

Oldest Purse- 4,500 yeas old

Oldest Skirt- 5,500 years old

Oldest Musical Instruments- 43,000 years old

Oldest Prosthetic- 3,000 years old

Oldest Written Song- 3,400 years old

Oldest Swiss Army Knife- 1,800 years old (compared to a Swiss Army Knife)

Oldest Marijuana Stash- 2,700 years old

Oldest Sex Toy- 28,000 years old

Oldest Known Material- 4.4 billion year old crystal

Science News This shoe is slightly older than Bill's.


facebook

[Casey Claar]

Bill should start a GoFundMe for a new wardrobe.

Or an Amazon "wish list" set up **notably now that the Hollidays are fast upon us.

The main avenue for assistance is always open and available for us to utilize, though ( as periodically [ or regularly ] as possible ) :: Project Avalon Donation

Just leave a little note with the love sent stating the monies are for personal needs, rather than Avalon board maintenance, when that is the intention.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
I'd told Casey that I thought they'd last a few more months, but now I'm hoping they might last just a few more days.



When the new Mark 3 shoes arrive, I think at the end of this coming week, (with immense thanks to Casey and one other anonymous kind member — you know who you are! ) I'll proudly showcase them and tip my (very old) hat to Mark that yes, sometimes brand new really is better.

@Casey (and the other anonymous donor! ), here they are.

(... cue ZZ Top )