Collecting Stuff

For those people who know me, they already have me pegged as a certified pack rat. Just throwing away one egg carton or that bit of twine a package was wrapped with causes me to stare at it for a full minute. I think about A) what could I do with this and B) where could I store it where I could find it again.

I've gotten better over the years, but I still have random postcards and calendars from five years ago that I just can't seem to throw in the trash. Believe me, in some areas of my life, I may need intervention someday.

I love paper. All kinds of paper. I collect stamps off envelopes, rifle through postcards at flea markets and antique stores and simply cannot resist an old photo album in a thrift store. I have cards of old buttons, milk caps from dairies and advertising cards from the 1800s. I have street maps from early 1900s St. Louis and Chicago and steamship sailing notices from 1910. I have a lovely English-to-Spanish dictionary from 1943 ("Where is the commode, por favor?) and almost a full 52-state "Welcome To" collection of postcards. It's a sickness.

I think of myself as a small curator of times gone by. Collecting little mementoes of past eras. Everybody's got a junk drawer. Mine just happens to be 7,200 square feet.