I sold my fish tank at the yard sale we held at the old house before Mimmie moved.  I’d never had much luck with fish except for goldfish and algae eaters, and then the last goldfish was alone, grew to a carp, and one sad day died; I decided to stick with mammals.  Now I know that I overfed them and the tank was in too sunny a spot.  But I was happy to unload it for a cool $5.

Mimmie wasn’t in a very good mood that day.  She didn’t want to move from the old place, even if it had little water, and she’d have plenty -- enough for an automatic washer in her new trailer, instead of the Ward’s wringer model that was in the old kitchen.  She reminded us of her displeasure many times after her move.  Years later she told me that it had taken her all of two years, but she came to love her new home.

That day we helped her sell many of her things.  She decided what would go, making it clear that she preferred modern things rather than old junk, anyway.  I didn’t think of it then, but just not when it came to the house itself, I guess.  She didn’t take the chrome and enamel kitchen set with her, though I so wanted her to.  An old notebook says that it sold for $18.35.  It was a symbol of the old kitchen.  She liked the new, improved harvest gold and brown ‘70s version that was waiting for her with the automatic washer.  It quickly displaced the older set to become the symbol of her kitchen.  She did bring her old hand mixer though, still in the box it came in the day my father won it in 1956 for selling Fords, the day of the move and still to this day carefully sewn together in Mimmie fashion with blue string.  She also brought her metal tea canister, which had a Lipton tea bag tag taped to the top for easy ID.  And the framed picture Aunt Dot had given her of her favorite politician, FDR.

It didn't take long to accumulate more stuff, though. "I’ve got quite a few baskets that I got for presents, that was my sort of hobby.  Now I want to get rid of them all,” she told Michael during a visit one day many years after moving to the trailer.