Oct. 20, 2002 - 23:40 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

I Wonder As I Maunder

Today has been one of 'Those' days for me. Sick all day yesterday and most of the night last night set the scene for a troubled time. Got up weak and draggy already far behind on things needing attention.

Doing things rote and mechanical which required time and little thought, my mind did its usual thing, which resembles the actions of a small, young dog, snarfling along from one side to another, backtracking and running ahead while the responsible, plodding one puts one foot ahead of the other -- rinse and repeat.

Our youngest son has become interested in Numismatics and has been collecting coins, mostly of US origin. He is doing as I did in the past, collecting within his ability to pay for coins using amounts of cash he would use for amusement and entertainment. I still look at all coins I get in change, keeping an eye out for Buffalo nickels, Indian Head pennies and other rare and odd coins. I have a near complete collection of 'wheat ear' pennies and Heather and I each are collecting the new quarters. Very economical, this collecting from change received in the market place -- only costs a quarter for each piece. We splurged and each have a Sacawagea dollar or two also.

As I went from one task to another I began to realize that most every one is a collector of one thing or another, some of us have collections, organized and classified with weird names. Collect coins ? Numismatic hobby. Collect stamps ? Philately is the name of your game. But there are so very many things that people seek, or if nothing else hold on to when those items are acquired from normal living operations. Each one I guess has a name, probably does. But a name is not required I think -- interest is.

When I was a little kid I remember seeing those treasured spoons that some adult women collected, my step mother had a collection of matchbooks she had picked up here and there in her lifetime from her travels. Hers was a very specialized thing, only from places she had been.

I guess most of us can be called avid collectors just because we have albums of pictures of places we have been and of people we love. But I do believe there is no specific name, club or meetings for those of us who collect and treasure pictures of that type.

Mementos usually find a place in a small drawer, box or some such thing. Tie tacks, pennies that have been squished in some machine at a park or place of amusement and other bits and pieces of memory. So am I a Mementoist ? Who cares, I love my mementos.

Women, oh gee, they seem to me to be the most dedicated, organized collectors in the world. Silverware, dishes, fancy glassware. Table cloths and napkins for any occasion imaginable. Bales of personal clothing, shelves of shoes. Usually the title of that type of collector is Mom.

Books and papers. Wow, I have condensed my small, personal library to just reference books including poetry. Current fiction I pass on as soon as read. Papers, urrgh. About once a month I sort through and throw away those not required, yet, the other day when going through things I ran on to pay stubs from when I worked in a place that I left in 1960.

Pictures on tables,

Pictures on the wall,

Pictures on the wall in the hall,

And that's not all,

If I accurately recall.

Books, on a shelf

On a table,

In a case,

They're piled where I am able,

Oh, horrors, there are more,

Wich are on the fringe,

Beginning to make a point sore,

Of exactly whose territory is which.

So, stupidly I wax lyrical about things empirical which are sometimes thought to be satirical to say the least, when I Wonder As I Maunder . . . . . . . . . . .

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