AM I THE ONLY ONE. . . . who has ever been bitten by the collecting bug?

This is a repost in commemoration of the 5^th anniversary of this blog (it was first posted 9/25/18)

COLLECTING
I once had a friend who enjoyed collecting antiques. She dragged me all around, picking through people’s old junk, hoping to find something of value that all the people before us had somehow missed. If you’re not into collecting, these forays can quickly become punishment, and so it was for me. Hours of wandering around picking up pieces, of junk, studying them, replacing them, then moving on to pick up something else.  BORING!!!   

My primary joy from those journeys came from the fact that it’s “hungry” entertainment and invariably we’d stop for a meal at some new place where we had not eaten before. Now that’s my type of entertainment. It almost made the shopping worthwhile….. almost!

Once you start collecting, you never stop. If you complete your collection, you begin collecting something else while you continue to try to improve your collection. Avid collectors collect more than one particular item; many collect dozens of different things. It might be old tobacco tins, baseball caps, jack knives, or even old bottles. Hell, when it comes right down to it, old anything.

I soon realized I was going to have to start collecting or die of boredom. In 1976, Michigan had put out a patriotic license plate to commemorate the 200-year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  It was red, white and blue and very attractive. When it was time to replace mine, I saved it and a number of others that I had found over the years.  So, I decided to start collecting license plates.  The problem was there were thousands of them.  So, I decided to try to get one from every state.  Presto!  I was a collector.

Years earlier I had received a bottle of Avon aftershave shaped like an antique car as a birthday gift from my youngest son. I had always treasured it, probably more because it was a gift from my son than because of its shape. At any rate, one day when we were pawing through old junk, looking for license plates, I came across another Avon bottle car. In fact, I found 2 or 3 of them in the same junk pile. Until that time, I hadn’t realized that there were more than the original I had received from my son.

That day, I truly became a collector. Soon enough, I had 10 or 15 cars in my collection and was anxious to find out how many more of them there might be. Suffice it to say, there were enough of them to make it interesting to attempt to collect them all.

After a time, I was no longer seeing that friend, but I didn’t stop collecting. From time to time, I came across another car to add to the collection. Eventually, I also began collecting eagles. All types of eagles, but preferably of a patriotic nature. They aren’t necessarily old or antique, but they are interesting and patriotic.

Unfortunately, it now seems as though the old antique is me.

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Gramps use’ta say
©R.L.King2012 #559

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