Musical Accompaniment: You’ve Been a Good Ol’ Wagon by Bessie Smith

I want to be a minimalist. I’m not a minimalist—and probably never will be—but I’ve made some strides! In the past 6 weeks, I’ve thrown away or donated everything I don’t use– clothes, skincare products, housewares, linens, dishes, cookware, utensils, and office stuff.

What a liberating feeling!  As Tyler Durden said in Fight Club, “The things you own end up owning you.” There’s a lot of truth in that line!

I like to take donations to smaller places but occasionally I go to the Goodwill near me. I like their logo.

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Goodwill was founded in 1902 in South Boston. At the time, the city was crowded with industry and the residents were working-class.

Reverend Edgar J. Helms was a Methodist minister who observed many of his parishioners were needy and impoverished.  This was long before welfare and  the minister came up with his own ingenious solution.

He visited the wealthy areas of the city, armed with a burlap bag. Like a reverse Santa Claus, he took away the things people didn’t want: torn clothes, rusty tools, chipped mugs, stained towels, and broken toys.

Rather than simply hand out the donations, he set up a small workshop and asked his needy parishioners to mend the clothing and repair the other items.

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Helms understood something important about human nature.  People didn’t want to exist on handouts. They only needed a chance, the minister believed. A chance to work and earn money to buy what they needed, to be self-reliant, to discover a sense of purpose.

Once the donations were clean and mended,  Rev. Helms sold them at a low cost and used the proceeds to pay the workers. That’s how Goodwill Industries was born. Its success was soon duplicated in cities across the country.

Surprisingly, their logo has only changed once in its 124-year-history. I must say, the modern version clearly beats the original (words you’ve rarely heard me say here)!

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Funny Goodwill-related memory. Many years ago, I was experimenting with mosaics. I wanted to make a grape motif on a large, flat surface. My boyfriend and I went to Goodwill where I bought an exceedingly ugly coffee table.  The clerk said, “You’re in luck, it’s half-price day.”

I worked furiously on the mosaic for a few days. The table was objectively uglier after my artistic enhancements but I was proud of it. I called my boyfriend and told him I had a big surprise. He came over, examined the table, and told me I’d done a beautiful job. I believed him.

Later that night, his friend called while we were watching TV. He walked into the other room to talk. A few minutes later, I overheard him say mosaic. I quickly turned down the TV just in time to hear him say, “My girlfriend is the most amazing woman. She somehow got ripped off at Goodwill on half-price day.”

Oh the shame!