Call me strange, but have you ever noticed that when people are
suddenly interrupted in the middle of reading a library book,
they’ll use almost anything as a bookmark to avoid turning down the
page?
Call me strange, but have you ever noticed that when people are suddenly interrupted in the middle of reading a library book, they’ll use almost anything as a bookmark to avoid turning down the page? Of course, we all do it at one time or another, but I’ve noticed that mothers, especially of young children, are particularly good at this. I’ve marked my place with such things as old gum wrappers and fast food napkins. Once I even used a piece of dental floss that I found in the bottom of my purse.
But this column isn’t really about bookmarks, though, don’t worry, I’ll come back to that. It’s about collections. I’ve never fully understood what motivated people to have collections. I don’t mean collections of priceless art or antiques, which, of course, I fully understand. I mean collections of things such as, say, shot glasses and ceramic cows.
Now, before you take things personally, I must admit some of my favorite people are collectors. For example, my friend Cherry is a young, single, urban professional with a good day job. There is absolutely no way of knowing by her youthful, hip exterior that she has more than five dozen sets of salt and pepper shakers stored in her tiny, one-bedroom apartment. But, what’s even more puzzling is that my father-in-law – an affluent, rational man who retired from a position of authority in the city government – has a secret collection of 37 manual cherry pitters.
Of course, there’s nothing really harmful in this, but I just don’t understand why people would want to keep track of all these things when I have enough trouble keeping track of four matching dinner plates.
Or at least I didn’t understand; that is, until not that long ago, when my family visited the county fair, and my husband headed straight toward the Exposition building that housed, you guessed it, cases and cases of people’s collections.
For what seemed like a zillion hours, possibly more, he stared at various assortments of candy dishes, wooden figurines, terra cotta lighthouses, science fiction magazines and toothpicks with flags of different countries pasted on the ends.
He was having the time of his life, while I was trying to nudge him toward the exit door before my teeth fell asleep. I didn’t understand how he could be interested in looking at such old junk.
But just as we were leaving, however, I glanced into the last display case containing a hodgepodge of old papers. The label along the top said, “A collection of items used as bookmarks in library books.” I was shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
There was a grocery bill from 1945 that came to a total of $1.50, directions for the milk man, an old traffic ticket, a straw wrapper, a tongue depressor with a doctor’s phone number stamped on it, a yellowed newspaper article about a New York City debutante in 1937, several old photographs, a postcard from Paris and a crayoned note that said “I LOVE YOU MOMMY” with a backwards “L.”
I mean, you’ve got to respect a collection like that.
“Come on,” my husband said, “Let’s go.”
“OK, but I just can’t believe that people left all of these important papers in library books,” I said, as I made a futile search in the case for my daughter’s preschool diploma that had, come to think of it, mysteriously disappeared around the same time I was reading Gone with the Wind.
I’m sure there’s a message in here somewhere. Perhaps it’s that collections are more than just arbitrary junk. Or, perhaps, it’s that collecting is a natural way for us to pass on our history. Or maybe it’s simply, “Do not use a borrowed book as a catch-all drawer.”
