Recently forcing myself to break down the accumulating cardboard boxes from the corner of my office, I wondered why I was so reluctant to pitch or recycle them, rather preferring to keep them piled high, every shape and size, gathering dust in a corner.

The cardboard box "commandment" of never throwing away a box, nor paper grocery bag, or any such good, usable item - we might need those "some day"....

Not fond of throwing away rubber bands, paper clips, crinkly unused envelopes, or "dry food clean" ziplock bags (understand that description?), where did my possessive (or compulsive) behavior get its birth?

Was it Timothy Egan's book "The Worst Hard Time" or Al Gore's literary contribution of "An Inconvenient Truth" or was it, as often is the fact, a lesson learned at my mother's knee. You guessed, along with me, Egan and Gore's books were provocative but long before I read either of them I learned through the experience of observing my mother's behavior. My mother who was a child of The Great Depression - who learned at her mother's knee.....not to throw it away, we might need it some day...