The right stuff (and why I won’t throw most of it out)

Remember that old Donavan song “I Love My Shirt”?

I love my shirt, I love my shirt,

My shirt is so comfortably lovely.

Yes, well, I, too, have a few shirts that spark passion.

A particular object of affection is the old L.L. Bean flannel that I am wearing — shirttails draped over the waist of my exquisitely depleted sweatpants — at this very moment.

Showing through cuffs and collar are streaks of white lining — a condition that makes the shirt easy to spot in the closet where I hang it, on a hanger, each evening — and toward the bottom, I now see faint but conclusive evidence of my almond butter and health bread lunchtime sandwich and, aah, I remember it well, the mushroom pizza of a couple nights ago.

I cannot imagine life without my shirt, and, militants and pirates please note, there would be a fight to the finish if upstarts were to take a sudden interest in cornering the world market in Black Watch plaid. Though a peaceful soul, generally, I would prevail, count on it, senior citizen, or not.

Also demanding commendation are a cherished pair of sneakers on which I have logged something close to — I wouldn’t lie — 3,000 miles.

These would be the white, leather high-tops I plucked, heart pounding, 20 years ago for $9 from the cheapo shelf at a local running shop and that I lace up most Sundays when I am in Brooklyn, walking around Prospect Park. I figure 35 Sundays annually, on average, times four miles from my Lincoln Place takeoff spot, multiplied by those 20 years — 2,800 miles.

Heels are badly worn at this point and before long, I suppose, there will be catastrophic structural failure, and I will be passing the bandshell or boathouse in what amounts to stocking feet, but, until then, those beauties are staying in the closet, ready for the next Sunday outing.

I am moved to celebrate my shirt and sneakers because, increasingly, people seem to throw things out way before the things need to be tossed. Driving around the suburbs on weekends, you see enough at the curbside to build and furnish a small Nebraska town. Everything imaginable is there for the taking — chairs, dressers, settees, stereo systems, baby carriages, strollers, windows, doors, picture frames, washing machines, bathroom vanities, the works.

I am tempted by the inventory but exercise restraint — oh, OK, there was that nice sisal rug that ended up under our dining room table, and the interesting little lamp that now is near my reading chair — while marveling at the bounteousness of America and impulse to deep-six what looks like perfectly decent stuff.

Age may have something to do with it.

My parents survived the Depression, barely, and that generation of folks threw away nothing and wasted less. Mom kept ends of Ivory soap bars in a jar and used the milky stew like dishwashing liquid. Bacon fat — that went into a tin can for the next round of home fries. Clothing? My father had suits that looked like hand-me-downs from William Henry Harrison. Mom’s housedresses must have been among the first market-tested. In the unlikely event that a piece of goods could be spared, it was washed, pressed and handed over to the church clothing drive. “Somebody always needs,” Mom declared.

I would agree that you can take things too far. My wife, for instance, uses bathroom Dixie cups twice, sometimes three times, and reuses aluminum foil so often I wonder if she’s heard the government is going to reinstitute World War II rationing.

And, after more than a half-century of newspaper writing, I still keep old clippings, on the theory, I guess, that when I’m gone, some archivist will stumble upon the moldy heap and race to anthologize journalistic classics like the story about an Albany minister who raised a 113-pound pumpkin or the 1970s Newsday feature concerning a fellow who fashioned a fluffy woolen automobile and parked it in Manhattan as an artistic statement of some sort.

So, yes, moderation is advised. No one wants to find himself featured on the “Hoarding: Buried Alive” TV reality show. But I am not dragging the love seat to the side of the road despite its many years of service, nor shopping for a new pair of Prospect Park sneakers, and don’t even mention my Black Watch flannel. Washing the dishes with soap ends instead of Dawn Ultra, that’s another matter.