One Man’s Collection Is Another Man’s Trash

Lately I have been seeing a lot of things online about people and their collections of this that and the other thing. It seems that if it exists there is someone who collects it. I was never much of a collector. I left all of that to my older brother.

Jimmy was just a little guy when someone gave him some stamps and an album to stick them in. That gift lit the fuse in him and he became a serious stamp collector…or a “Philatelist” as he chose to be called. He kept on collecting for decades and turned his hobby into a significant bankroll.

I saw how much pleasure he got out of his stamp collection so I figured that I’d try it.

I found it to be mind numbingly boring and my collection soon found its way into one of my brother’s albums.

“Stamps: Free to a good home.”

I tried coin collecting. I was a failure at being a Numismatist too. At least the stamps were colorful. The coins were as exciting as dirt.

As the years passed and my brother and I moved on our separate paths his collecting gene kept him accumulating stuff while I went in the other direction and worked hard at getting rid of things. I began to suspect that one of us was adopted. He was dark and muscular. I was pale and flabby, but I had seen our birth certificates so there was no doubt about our lineage.

It was in the 1970s when the next Great Collection Storm began. I started collecting British Sports Cars. I didn’t let it get out of hand. My collection topped out at One. They take up room.

I was living in Cleveland. He was in the suburbs of Washington D.C. It had been awhile since I had driven down there to visit him, his wife and kids. I just assumed that he was still into Stamps. The stamps had become residents in a safe deposit box silently gathering in value. He had started a new collection that gave him both pleasure and the need for additional space.

I was both shocked and mystified when I walked into their den and saw row after row of shelves on

every wall filled with Beer Cans. Empty beer cans.

It had never occurred to me that anyone would collect beer cans. I don’t drink beer. I don’t like beer. I don’t have even one beer can, full or empty, in my life. He had hundreds. Of course I was given a detailed tour informing me about the “vintage” of each can. My brother made a good docent. The tour did not end in a gift shop. I have to admit that his display was both overwhelming and disturbing. Someone had to have chugged all that beer. His wife was nurse and couldn’t show up for work smelling like she hung out with Clydesdales and their daughters were significantly underage.

People love to collect things. They all have their own reasons, much like I have my reasons for not collecting things. My reasons result in a lot less dusting, but who am I to shake my head and go “tsk, tsk.”

I never criticized or belittled my brother’s collection of beer cans. It could have been worse. He could have collected Italian Sports Cars.

The Light Of A Thousand Suns

 

THIS MORNING WE GOT WORD THAT A FRIEND OF OURS HAD AN ACCIDENT while visiting England. She is fine, just a cut finger that netted her two stitches and a visit to a British ER. She was lucky. Very lucky compared to Anatoli Bugorski.

Anatoli Bugorski, now retired, was a high powered Russian Scientist who, in 1978, had an accident of his own. For him two stitches in his thumb weren’t going to make it “all better.”

Tubular Meats

 

“TUBULAR MEATS” IS NOT A PHRASE YOU HEAR VERY OFTEN. It might even be rarely heard. You just have to be in the right place at the wrong time.

Let me first define the term.

Tubular Meats: “A Classification of a certain style or configuration of foods such as hot Dogs, Sausage Links, Kielbasa, and even the often neglected Vienna Sausages. Pigs in a Blanket are not included unless the blankets are removed.”

“Chopper”

 

I DON’T HAVE A GOOD MEMORY FOR NAMES. I just don’t. My mother wore a name tag until I was twelve – just so I‘d know who that woman was. And then there are some people I won’t ever forget.

His name was “Chopper.”

“Chopper” wasn’t his real name of course. It was a name that he earned in the Military. I knew him after his Army days, but I heard the stories – a few from him directly, but most from his brother. “Chopper” himself was somewhat reticent to talk about his time in Southeast Asia.

“Chopper” was a young Irish boy from Cleveland. He came from a family of Firefighters who lived life like it was a nonstop wedding reception. If something was worth doing – it was worth doing at full speed.

Picture Me As “Superfly”

 

LAST WEEK MY WIFE, THE LOVELY AND EVER OBSERVANT, Dawn, and I were driving around town taking care of some errands when she asked me a question that made me go, “Hmmm?”

Her question: “What ever happened to Whitewall tires?”

Indeed.

Were You There?

IT’S EASTER ALREADY? I guess that it has sort of sneaked up on me this year. I was just putting away all of the Christmas stuff when – Poof! I turn on the TV and it is filled with all of the Jesus Movies. That’s what I used to call those Biblical Epic movies when I was a kid.

The 1950s was a big decade for Jesus Movies – “Ben Hur,” “King of Kings,” “The Robe” with Richard Burton chewing the scenery like a rabid Schnauzer. We saw them all as soon as they hit the Wide Screen.

Disco Latte!

Its 6:30 AM AND THE FIRST ANNUAL ST. ARBUCKS DISCO PARTY IS IN FULL SWING!

Gloria Gaynor is Surviving nicely as I sip my coffee. I can feel the beat as my head serves as my own personal Disco Ball. It may be 28° outside, but inside – it is cookin’!

A couple of the baristas are moving to the constant tempo and even the manager has a case of Saturday Night Fever. That man can strut!

I don’t know who picks the piped in music, but I suspect it comes in all the way from Seattle. That tells me that somebody on the shores of the Juan de Fuca Strait either danced the night away or has just purchased a closet full of Polyester Shirts and Platform Shoes.

May The Farce Be With You

MY WIFE, THE LOVELY AND WONDERFULLY OBSERVANT, DAWN, and I were having a discussion about our favorite movies when the “Star Wars” franchise came up. I remember seeing the first film back in 19…whatever it was. I know we had electricity, so it was sometime after World War One. It’s been a while that I know.

I enjoyed the movie, but despite all of the special effects and nifty costuming, I realized that “Star Wars” was really just a Cowboy Movie. It was a fun and rollicking Cowboy Movie to be sure, but an Oater nonetheless.

Faster, Higher, Stronger, And A Bit Annoying

IT OCCURRED TO ME LAST NIGHT while watching the swimmers and gymnasts, doing things that are usually done only by creatures with fins or prehensile tails, that I hadn’t written very much about the Olympics.

Well – Here goes.

I Have No Need To Move

I KNOW THAT SPRING OFFICIALLY BEGAN a few weeks ago and I was truly grateful. Spring means that better weather is coming – unless you live in Denver or someplace like that. If you live there then Spring means that winter continues, pedal to the metal until mid-summer. That alone has kept me a “Flatlander” or close to it.

But now, it is definitely Spring, which in my book means that warm weather is on the way. However – I feel that I must define “warm weather.”

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y

ONE OF THE USUAL SUSPECTS asked me what I was planning to do this weekend. Before I could answer another of the bunch started singing, not very well, a fractured rendition of the old number by The Bay City Rollers: “Saturday Night.”