"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."- Ernest Rutherford
Okay, I know it's been ages since I've blogged. I sincerely apologize if anyone out there was actually reading. My delay is simply due to the fact that I have had absolutely no spare time in the past several months. When you work at a fertilizer company, your busy season is spring, when the growing begins. We've been relentlessly selling various smelly chemicals and multicolored fertilizers in bright yellow satchels to nurseries, retailers, farmers, and even smalltown gardeners looking to festively adorn their lawns with flowers and vividly green grass. It was actually a pretty good spring considering the slump in the economy these days. But, since lazy and miserably hot June has come back around, business has slowed down considerably. So, today I had time to catch up on a few back issues of Martha Stewart Living. While reading, I came across a tiny paragraph on the bottom of the Great Finds page. It introduced a blog called, "A Collection a Day, 2010." This very interesting project taken on by Lisa Congdon takes an artful look at many vintage collections of hers and displays them photographically, one a day. The pictures are very fun to look at, and reminded me of the many collections I have had throughout my life. Take a look: http://collectionaday2010.blogspot.com/.
I, personally, have no idea why people collect. I can remember when I was smaller thinking that it was extremely important to collect something. I don't know where I got this philosophy from; whether I heard it at school, or it was taught to me by a family member, I can't seem to figure out. What I do know, is that from a very young age I have felt the importance to collect, and I seemed to have been doing it ever since.
My grandmother, for as long as I can remember, has always collected stamps. I can remember thumbing through her stamp collection and noticing a stamp with a puppy painted on it and the word LOVE typed underneath in red capital letters. I can clearly picture this stamp and call it my favorite because, as a child, I saw a segment of Sesame Street where that particular stamp was shown being made. I can remember marveling at all of the different colors that it took to create that stamp, which pictured only a brown puppy on the front. To make the puppy brown, though, they used yellow, red, black, white, among other colors, all pressed one hue on top of another, which I thought was completely amazing. Since my encounter with that stamp, I have begun collecting stamps myself, to some day put with my grandmother's collection. I get our mail clerk here at work to cut out any that look interesting, or that I don't already have. But, stamps are one of the more boring items I have collected in my time.
It's amazing some of things that people collect, whether on purpose, or purely by accident. My dad has always collected various sports magazines, particularly issues that interest him. If you asked him, I doubt he would say he collects them, but; indeed, he has a rather large collection of neatly arranged, crisp magazines that date back to the early 80's I am sure. My mom has a collection of ducks and hummingbirds. She has always loved those birds, and she seems to have an abundance of them in various places throughout her home. I, however, seem to collect things that are a bit more strange.
My first purposeful collection that I can recall would have to be my collection of unsharpened pencils. Nearly every week in elementary school my mom would give me $0.25 or $0.50 to purchase a pencil from the pencil machine at school, not because I needed pencils (I always preferred to write with mechanical pencils), but because I wanted them for my collection. To this day I have over 500 unsharpened pencils with various designs printed on them. Nearly every pencil in my collection is different and unique. Some are glittery, shiny, covered in metallic stars, Valentine hearts, or swirls where others simply have logos or advertisements on them. I don't collect unsharpened pencils anymore, but I do seem to have an abudance of writing utensils in general- from ink pens to markers- I have hundreds. There really is no need for me to ever purchase a writing utensil again!
Around the time that I collected unsharpened pencils I also collected erasers. Not just your average run-of-the-mill pink standard eraser, though. These were the kitschy Lisa Frank erasers that were neon-colored and all different shapes and sizes. Some were shaped like unicorns, others like hot dogs. I still have them neatly stored in a red tin with a teddy bear on the front. This past weekend while in Athens with my boyfriend and some friends we stopped in at a store downtown that had all kind of funky stuff that you would rarely find anywhere else. There were tons of great gag gift and stocking stuffer ideas. I could have plundered through their inventory for days! And, much to my surprise (and excitement) I found tiny bags of pencil erasers in various shapes and themes. The bag on top housed an eraser shaped like a baseball bat, a baseball, a glove, and maybe a cap or a mound. All the bags were proudly displayed on a shelf and it seemed like there were no two themes alike! A collector's dream come true!
One of my larger childhood collections was my sticker collection. I would estimate that I probably (still) have over 10,000 stickers- possibly way more than this. None of them were ever stuck either. Still on their original backing. They are neatly tucked away in a red, plastic briefcase. :)
Other childhood collections of mine included candy that I often hoarded from Halloween, Happy Meal toys, books, baseball cards, clothing tags from retailers and boutiques, plastic and paper shopping bags, "love" notes from admirers and old boyfriends, plastic barrettes, birthday, Christmas, Valentine, and other holiday or special occasion cards, and old catalogs and magazines.
Today, I have collections of a variety of things: scented lotions, DVDs, travel-sized shampoos, glass ornaments, gift-wrapping supplies (particularly ribbon and bits of string or netting that would neatly adorn a package), gift bags, scraps of paper that can be used as gift tags, note cards, or scrapbook decoration, magazine clippings of quotes or pictures for scrapbooking, glass bottles and jars, beer bottle caps (for a patio furniture/mancave project I haven't finished yet), vintage buttons and other sewing materials, costume jewelry, plastic water bottles (to take to the recycling center), hair ties, bobby pins, and headbands, nail polishes, photographs, lip gloss, recipes, movie and concert ticket stubs, postcards...and the list goes on and on.
I still don't understand completely why people accumulate so much stuff. I imagine it has a lot to do with fond memories of times that we can only long for again, since we can never relive the past. For whatever reason, collecting things, whether on purpose, or accidentally, is one of the little things in life that we can cherish and excite in. Warm memories are often the glue that holds us together, so why not relish them every chance we get? I will hopefully never stop collecting. Each collection represents an important chapter in my life, and has helped make me, me. To those of you out there that fancy yourselves collectors or gatherers, I hope you always collect, and that your collections bring joy, hope, and wisdom into your life and into the lives of the ones that you love. ♥
2 years ago
