Collector or Hoarder? #T

I have a friend who is a collector of certain artsy items.  These are neither cheap nor tacky, yet he has hundreds of them and will buy more as he finds them.  They have not driven him from his home, for while he has many dozens of them tastefully displayed throughout the house, the vast majority of them are neatly stored in boxes in the garage and attic.  He is a collector, a consumer of fine art.  

I have known a number of people, both men and women, who are hoarders.  These people amass stuff.  Once they acquire an item they cannot rid themselves of it.  These things may have value, they may be useless, but the clutter they create builds to the point that the occupant of the house has mere aisles eighteen inches wide between piles of junk, a path from a kitchen, a bathroom, one to a bedroom.  Papers, books, magazines stacked four feet high, unimaginable and unusable trash everywhere.  If there were a treasure in the lot, the heirs will never find it, for they will simply have the stuff shoveled into dumpsters when the owner dies.  Hoarder.

Oh, by the way.  Neither the stuff of the hoarder nor the collector has any eternal value.  Jesus said, 

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.  --Matthew 6:19,20

People Watching #T

I sit on the courtesy bench at the end of a bank of checkout lanes while BBBH studies the available stock in the supermarket.

People watching.  Young couple, mid-thirties, conducted transaction at courtesy counter.  He is perhaps 5' 5", 130.  Small man, straight nose, strong jaw, nice looking.  He is wearing a navy blue sweatshirt with Superman logo on front.  She is half-head taller than he, somewhere in the 5' 8", 5' 9" range, 180.  Indeed I am already thinking, "He must be Superman," when they are joined near the front exit by two girls, obviously their daughters.  Both, like their mother, are taller than he.  The younger one is probably eleven, the other about fourteen.

He lives with these three ladies.  Yep.   Superman!


Word of the day:  Superman.  If you think he is just the figment of some imagination, you should meet some of the people I have met!

Conversations with Random People: Eight

I rode the bike to the DG where I parked it next to a neat little motor scooter.  I went in to pick up two items, coffee and laundry detergent, two things I suppose one could exist without, but that could hardly be called living.  When I came back to my wheel, a young man was loading his purchases into the scooter.  “That’s the way to go these days,” I remarked.  

 “Sure is, Mr. L,” he replied.  

I said, “If  I’m not on my bike I am on one of those.”  

“I remember,”  he said, “that you rode a bike with a really high seat.”  

“Yes, but not anymore.  I doubt that I could even get on it anymore.   Age does that to you.”  

“I know,” he chimed in, “I just turned fifty-two.  I’ll have a new grandchild in a week or two.”

Really, I am thinking.  This was one of my students in elementary school.  I could not think of his name.  I used to be fair with name recall, but the brain, like the muscles, seems to atrophy with time.  “How many grandchildren do you have now?” I inquired.  

“Three, all girls.  If the next one isn’t a boy, that will be the end of the line for the Mc______ name.”  

(Thanks for the clue!)  "Well, it is all good, anyway,” I said.  “It’s good to see you".  

He extended his hand, I shook it, and he said, “Nice seeing you, too!”  He started his motor, I mounted the bike.  Each headed his own way. 

Street Vendors

Atlanta, a village some six miles to the south, is a quaint  place with a number of beginning-of-the-twentieth-century buildings in the business district, but few businesses to occupy them.  But the people valiantly soldier on, making an effort to keep their place attractive.

For the past forty years, the last Saturday and Sunday of September (or thereabouts) have been dedicated in this town to "The Earth Festival."  It is, of course, another small-town Indiana street fair, hosting vendors from miles around.  We have attended, at least one year in the past, when we had to walk through driving snow to get back to where we had parked our car.  This year, though, was perfect, weather-wise, for the sun shone brightly on the festival, the temperature was pleasant, and a good time was clearly being had by lots of people.

BBBH and I rode the scooter to Atlanta, walked the streets, and in her case, the lady talked to some of the vendors, and yes, bought stuff.  But no more stuff than we could carry home on the scooter.

 Like fruit flies to pears on the ground, people seem to be attracted to cheaply-made and over-priced merchandise.  Find Waldo?  No, find BBBH.  She is in this picture.*

Some of downtown Atlanta's old buildings seen here behind the street vendors.

 People are also attracted to over-priced junk food.  There were actually lines at some food stands.

 As I snapped this shot, I thought, "This will be the best picture of the day."  I think it is.  This residence is on the Tipton County side of County Line Road and just two blocks from "downtown."  There is a kid peeking through the curtain of the window, stage right.

Someone  always seems to have a set of old wheels.

*BBBH is just about to disappear behind the utility pole in the center of the picture.

Conversations with Random People: Six

We had been sitting in the doctor's waiting room forty-five minutes (having arrived the standard five minutes ahead of the appointment)* when BBBH said, "That's it.  I'm leaving."  Now I've seen her pull this on previous occasions.  Her patience with the doctor's scheduling practices is limited.

"Why did you make this appointment?"  I asked.  She rehearsed the litany of complaints, which I already knew, but reiterated that this kind of wait was ridiculous.  I was able to calm her sufficiently to keep her there the additional ten minutes it required before the attendant opened the door and called her name.

Now she is cloistered in the exam room, and heaven alone knows how long I will continue to wait.  And I am cold.  And I have been cold for an hour.  So I decided to step outside for some soothing sunshine.  As I near the exit, I pass a couple who are also waiting.  Guessing ages is difficult, but it is clear that these people have both reached the portals, or have passed through the gates, of "The Golden Age."  The lady is smartly dressed, as though she might have another appointment after this one, in a place somewhat more elegant.  Her hair is that blondish-white that is reflective of the years, and she wears it just a bit longer than do many women of a certain age.  It curls softly to her shoulders.

The gentleman has on an orange and white horizontally striped polo shirt.  His hair is very short, quite curly, and white as the proverbial snow.  He is seated in a wheelchair.  He is strapped into his conveyance.

I stop beside his chair, look at the woman, and say, "Did I hear you say you live in Swayzee?"  Which of course I had heard when they arrived a half-hour earlier.

"Yes, we do.  Except for several years we spent in Utah, we have lived there all our lives."  She described the exact location of their home, and I could picture it in my mind's eye, for I have been up and down that road many, many times over the years.

"I lived in Converse many years ago," I said.  "I worked in Greentown."

"What did you do there?" he asked.

"I was a teacher."

"Oh," she asked by the tone of her voice, "then you knew Dorothy H?"

"Well, no.  I think not.  Perhaps she went there after I left.  I moved from there in '69."

"Yes, perhaps she came later.  Let's see.  My oldest started school there in 1972."

"Indeed that would have been after my time there."

"The mister hunts coyotes.  Even though his Parkinson's causes him much grief, our grandson, who is six-four and weighs about 240, takes his Grandpa out with the dogs."  He gets the hides cured, you know, over at. . . " and here she named a well-known taxidermist.  She had pronounced the name of the prey as I do, ky-oats.

Here the old fellow spoke up, eyes alight with memories of his younger day.  "My passion when I was younger was breaking horses.  Could have stayed in Utah forever!"

And he and I had found common ground, for though horses are not my thing, they are definitely the thing of my eldest stepson.  For him, life has its meaning in horses, and thus our conversation had direction until the nurse opened the door and called the next patient.

Conversations with Random People: With a Twist

The twist:  This time I was approached by a stranger rather than the other way around.

We had endured two or three of the hottest days of the year, literally.  Then the cold front moved in. The next morning I stopped at Alco to check out an item they had advertised in their flyer.  (Not suitable, as it turns out.)  Anyway, as I entered the store, a rather large fellow, fiftyish, wearing a t-shirt and bib overalls walked through the door just ahead of me.

As I exited the building several minutes later I saw the same man opening his truck door.  When he spotted me he closed the door and came over to me and said, "Is there a Goodwill store in this town?"

"No," I replied.  "But we do have a used merchandise store called "Second Blessing" right down town.

"Do they sell clothing?" he asked.  "I need a jacket; I am freezing to death."

"They do, but they don't open until noon."

"Well, I better go back in here then. Thanks."  And he walked back toward the store.

It was sunny 60^o, 10:40 a.m.  I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

Conversations with Random People: Four

We were camped on Holly Beach, Louisiana in January, the January prior to the August of Katrina and eighteen months before Rita.  We were packed and ready to depart on the following morning after a wonderful week of appreciation for the sun, the sand, the soughing of the wind and the roar of the surf.  We would participate in the pitch-in dinner on the final evening, and say our farewells.

The young man in the sharply creased chinos and the snap-front crisp white western-cut shirt strode into the room on intricately detailed shiny black boots with his wife, and the manager of the campground.  Rex and Jeannie were introduced to the group as the newest members of the  camp community.

I had seen the couple arrive about an hour earlier and noted that the red Ram pickup towing the fifth-wheel RV had the white-on-black license plate with bronco: Wyoming.

After a filling, if eclectic, repast, I made it a point to speak with Rex.  "I see you are from Wyoming.  I was born and reared in Colorado.  Makes us sort of neighbors, I guess."

"Interesting.  I was born in Colorado, too.  Where were you born?"

"Oh, a little town no one ever heard of."

"Try me."

"I was born in Hartman."

"Really?  Hartman.  I know it well. My grandmother lives there.  We just visited her last summer."

Small world, indeed.

Conversations with Random People: Three

Same morning I met Bill, couple hundred yards along the way I saw a trailer with three, three! Sandwich engines.  Old guy (how is it so many of the people at these things are old guys?) sitting behind the display in an old webbed aluminum lawn chair.  Fellow looked to be quite physically fit, probably six feet, two hundred.  White hair in marine style crew.  Not bald, but any shorter and all the hair would still be inside the scalp.

I walked around the trailer eyeing the engines. The largest had a flywheel probably 24 inches, rated 2.5 hp, meaning in this case, two and one-half real horsepower.  The smallest was mounted on an old reel-type lawn mower.  I don't recall ever having  seen a pop-and-spin engine on a lawn mower. The third engine was somewhere between these two in size.  Now I was eight feet from the owner, who had been watching my interest with interest.

"What motivated you to collect and restore Sandwich engines?" I queried.

"Collect 'em.  Not so much into restoring them," he said.  Got interested in collecting because I grew up in Sandwich, Illinois."

"Where is Sandwich?"

"About forty miles west of Chicago."

"Wife is from Illinois.  Born in Mt. Vernon, spent several of her childhood years in Chicago before returning to Mt. Vernon."

"Mt. Vernon.  Somewhere in southern Illinois?"

"Yeah," I averred.  "It's on I-57, hour or so south of I-70.  On 64 hour or so west of St. Louis."

We chatted a bit about roads, how one gets from here to there and such like.  Then, eyeing my bicycle, he said, "Antique Scwinn?"

"No," I replied, "a fairly recent old-style look-alike.  It's maybe fifteen years old."

Then he said, "Got my Schwinn in 1946 when I was 12 years old.  I still have it."

"So I guess we are the same age.  I got my first new bike in 1946 when I was twelve years old.  It was stolen when I was a senior in high school, though, so I don't have it anymore."

"Really.  How old are you, then?"

"Seventy-nine."

"When was your birthday?"

"Turned seventy-nine in July."

"You got me by a couple of months," he said.  "I'll be seventy-nine in October."

"Hang in there! Nice talking with you."  I mounted my wheel.

"Drop back by.  I'll probably be starting these up a little later."

Conversations with Random People: Two

The old guy looked to have traveled around the sun about as many times as I have.  A wisp of an old guy, five-six or thereabouts, and 130.  He had on a blue plaid shirt and a bolo tie closed with a silver eagle.  His hat was a waterproof trilby, somewhat the worse for wear, but it had a "Missouri" logo, the word and an outline map, on the front. We were looking at an old McCormick-Deering tractor at the tractor and antique show.

 "She looks to be about as old as we are," I opined.

"Ay-a," he said, "she's got some age on her."

"You from Missouri?" I asked.  "I see you are advertising the Show Me State."  (I pronounced it "M'sura"-- you can tell stuff about a Missourian by the way he pronounces the name of the state.)*

"Ay-a.  I lived up to Kokomo for forty-five years, but I went back to Missouri a while ago."  (He pronounced the name with the "ee" sound on the end.)  "Ya can't really go back, though.  Nothin's the same.  Nothin' around there anymore but cotton fields and rice."

"Yep, Tom Wolfe had it right: you can't go home again.  So you live down in the Bootheel?"  (Put two and two together, you see.)

"Yes, I do.  Grew up there, prolly die there."

"David," I said, "nice talking with you."  I offered my right hand.  He shook with me, said, "Bill.  Take care now."

*I one time read somewhere (how's that for citing my source?) that Missouri is the only state whose name is consistently pronounced in more than one way, even by Missourians.  Politicians, it is said, will often use two different pronunciations in the same speech in an effort to appeal to a "broader audience."  Well, perhaps so.  Politicians are notorious for their ability to come down on both sides of the fence without ripping their trousers.

Conversations with Random People: One #T

I am neither the most affable nor the most sociable person in the county, but people interest me.  I find that if I show an inkling of that interest to a near-stranger, or even a complete stranger, an interesting conversation is likely to ensue.

There are snobs and too-busy-to-live types who won't give anybody beneath the rank of "Earl" the time of day; but I am not talking about them.  I am talking about most people.  For the simple reason that 1) I have not cleared the presentation of these accounts with the principals, and 2) in some cases I don't even know the real names of the participants, I am using random names from, well, a "What to Name the Baby" book, if you will.

In a campground in Texas which we have frequented on several occasions.

We met Candy and her husband Jim at Sunday morning church service.  A conversation on our way out led to the discovery that while she is twenty years my junior, Candy and I were born in the same county in Southeastern Colorado.  The two little towns of our nativity are less than eight miles apart.  While my parents moved us away from there when I was yet an infant, Candy grew up in her home town and graduated high school there.

I have been in Candy's little town many times, and in fact when I was a child I had an uncle who lived there.  We visited Uncle Wayne and his family on a number of occasions.

The lady asked me where Uncle lived, and I told her he was the section foreman for the Santa Fe and he lived in the company house beside the tracks at the west edge of town.

It is I with Uncle Wayne and Aunt Stella in Southeastern Colorado.

"That," said Candy, "is very interesting.  My grandfather probably worked for your Uncle, for he was one of the Mexican citizens who came to the States to work on the railroad.  He came to America with the promise of a job, and ultimately citizenship if he so desired.  My grandfather chose to become an American, and that is how I happened to be born in Colorado!"

Interesting, indeed.

Gandy dancers.

A Few Unimportant Things

I observed while waiting for the granddaughter's return.  (See previous post.)

 Back in the (boring) day of my youth, girls came in basically three categories:  blondes, brunettes, and redheads.  Yes, there were hundreds of shades, but each pretty much belonged to one of these classes.  Not so today.  There is virtually no color that one is not likely to see in any group sufficiently large.  And varied in age.  This coif, color ranges from ash blonde in front through shades of blue, to a vivid blue in back.

It was a very hot and humid day, and these ladies had put their hair up out of the way.  Much cooler this way, no doubt.  The interesting thing, though, is that these are probably two of the most intricate hairdos one might encounter, for those topknots are composed of dozens of braids piled up and, I suppose, pinned in some manner.  Cool.*

I can't show you the green hair, because that is a picture I did not take.  BBBH called my attention to it as the lady possessed of the green hair walked by.  The camera was not ready and I missed the shot.

I hope to convey a mental picture for you of a photo I really wanted, yet hadn't the courage to ask if I could snap it.  The lady was beautiful, and I was afraid she'd think I was a masher.  Yeah, right.  She was two generations my junior.  Anyway, she was dressed in a beautiful summer dress, frock, I believe it is called, in yellow and white.  She had a very neatly handmade sign. about 24" x 36".  Four lines.

Welcome home signs:  $10

Pretty yellow dress:  $60

Case of Miller Lite:  $18

Having Captain Schraum home:  Priceless!

*The lady on your left does not have blond extensions.  That hair belongs to the woman in front of her.