Sunday Scribblings

#77 - Collector Personality
Some people are collectors -- others are not. I would venture to say it is a personality type, that urge to gather together and own and organize particular things. It's fascinating what some collectors collect. Are you a collector? Of what, and to what lengths will you go? Do you know any quirky collectors? You might also imagine a rather difficult collection to maintain, or a particularly creepy or obscure one. Have fun!


Am I a collector? We are all collectors. If you don't believe me just look around you, Record collections, Book collections, Spoon collections, Ceramics, china, etc. etc. etc.. It all started for me on the school yard with marbles. Aggies, immies, cats-eyes, and swirls. It was also my first experience with gambling, playing for keepsies. When kids tried to trade for their favorite marbles that they lost, offering three or four for one, that was the first time I heard the word 'asshole', sorry guys, losers weepers.

Then came baseball cards. Do you have any idea how many times I wished I had kept them (hid them from my wife), She trashed them along with any pictures of my ex-girlfriends that just happened to be laying around in my wallet. "Time to put an end to childish games," she sighed. Mantle, Maris, Kofax, Linda and Jo-anne banished to the bin. What would they be worth on ebay today?

Then came Hockey cards. I kept them away from the bin by saying that they were our sons, he was four. Yeah, Yeah what does a four year old know about hockey! He was at my side every Saturday night pulling for the 'Maple Leafs' until I carried him upstairs to his bed. I told him the score in the morning. It turned out that he traded them all for a couple of Ninja Turtle action figures. Do I hear some of you ladies saying;"serves you right!" Ha! What about the father who made his kid give up his Turtles so he could get his hands on my...my son's hockey cards? What do you say about him?

What's next...Hmmmm, Oh yeah, Ties, stopped at about 150, How many ties does one man need? I had a really cool narrow leather zip tie and a couple knit ties that I used to wear around the house or in the garden... The wife wouldn't step out the door with me if I was wearing them. "Your going to the movie alone if your wearing that!" she would say. Can't say that I blame her they were so ugly they were cool.

Funny thing happened today. We were in a restaurant having brunch when I looked up and seen a man standing in line with a brushcut on the top of his head, sides were shaved except for the back which had a long ponytail. He had those big muttonchop sideburns that swooped down along the jawline then up to meet up with this fat mustache. "I bet you wouldn't go out with me if I had a haircut like that?" I asked her. She turned around and looked, then back at me. "I would be making an appointment for you with a psychiatrist first thing in the morning." she said. She cracks me up.


In the last five or so years I have kept my need to collect in check except for trying to get the 50 Greatest Jazz albums , that were made into gigital format compact discs. An added challenge was to not pay full price for them but to find them in garage sales, used record stores or on ebay. I managed to get them all except for a few that are proving difficult.

My latest obsession(Yes, it's True) is with Fountain pens. I've bought three so far. One on ebay that retracts like a ballpoint (cost more then i care to admit). God! I love this pen it's like writing with a silk ribbon. It glides accross the paper and lays down this slick wet line that no longer resembles my handwriting and the beautiful thing about fountain pens is that they need ink. There is J. Herbin inks from France, 26 different colors, ph neutral, water based, you could drink this stuff and it wouldn't harm you. If it would only turn my urine the same color, I would so write my name in the snow...again. J. Herbin has colors with names like 'Lie de The' or 'Jaune Bouton D'Or'. How sexy is that. What about Waterman's Havana Brown, I would love to use this in a Molskine Journal and pretend that I'm Hemmingway sitting outside a Europeon cafe, making character sketches of the people passing. What about Noodlers Bulletproof permenant ink, with names like Iraqi Indigo, Zhivago, and The Sun Never Sets? Don't you just want to throw your pedestrian ballpoints and Rollerballs in the trash and run out and buy a pen that uses these inks? Yes I only need one pen but the inks I would like to try(need) seem endless.