Magnetism

You know how there are little tokens, icons, “things” which people buy on a whim or pick up at souvenir and gift shops? Some people have frog collections with cupboards and china cases full of the little green amphibians in every guise and pose, funny and serious. Philosopher frogs and dopey, dumb ones. Something about frogs.

Then there are the salt and pepper shaker collections (I always thought those were a bit odd); shaving mugs lined up all in a row; the coffee mug connoisseurs; the campaign button and sign collectors; toy cars; Coca Cola memorabilia — the list goes on and on. People like to have little harmless collecting obsessions and display their treasures for others, but primarily for themselves to view.

From kitsch to fine china and porcelain, collecting habits tell us a lot about people. I used to collect stamps as a kid, spending hours peering at them, arrranging, organizing and studying them. Why, I am not sure. But it was part of my tendency toward escapism. I collected stamps of all the British colonies and took vicarious trips all over the world via the scenes they portrayed of exotic islands and small nations on far-flung continents.

Like I said, I have never really understood the salt and pepper shaker collecting phenomenon, but I presume there’s a lesson there, some symbolic meaning to it all.

Some of us develop a long-lasting fascination with certain material things, which, when looked at in the harsh light of logic or rationality, makes little sense. But collecting fulfills some need, the objects accumulated brings a smile to our faces. They let us know that out there in some flea market or junk shop or “antique” store there is one of those missing pieces to a collection, the one-of-a-kind, unique and rare item that, when we see it, immediately takes on value far beyond its actual worth. It becomes something we have to purchase. Our collections are ourselves, one might say.

I don’t do much of this because mostly I collect books — new and used (A future entry). But if I see anything whatever related to my great passion which is old grist mills, I will not hesitate for a second to purchase it. That’s what happend two years ago in an antique store on the main street of a little town in upstate South Carolina. There on a table near the far corner of the shop was a grist mill painting in an old, dusty frame of a scene from corn milling days of long ago in the last century or early in this century. it was a time of ingenius mechanical devices that turned big buhr stones that ground wheat the old-fashioned way. I think I paid about $4 for the print, frame included.

To me it’s a treasure because grist mills symbolize a gentler, quieter age in our country’s history when people lived primarily on farms and in small rural towns and communities. They were much more self-sufficient. By 1920, the grist mills were dying out and being abandoned, becoming sentimental relics in the countryside. Today, however, many are being lovingly restored, and an old tradition of millers teaching apprentices is being revived in a few places. I like that.

One other note about collecting obsessions. You may have noticed when you enter someone’s kitchen how the refrigerator door is likely to be covered with stick-on magnets, kitschy pieces of collectible art themselves, holding down photos, recipes, notes, poems, newspaper clippings and a bewildering variety of other objects deemed worth viewing and remembering. Some of these magnets are little doodads that are just cute or odd, conversation pieces — collectibles, again, if you will. Since I rarely have the opportunity to venture into these spaces inhabited by others, I don’t get a chance to observe what’s cluttering up the surfaces of refrigerators these days. I am intrigued, nevertheless.

Myself, I have a grand total of three refrigerator magnets, and each in its own way provides a pithy little insight into my psyche. The complete inventory is as follows: a miniature 6-oz. Coke bottle with tiny temperature gauge; a small scene of a beautiful covered bridge I visited in North Carolina three years ago; and an Amazon.com magnet with Cicero’s oft-quoted maxim: “a room without books is like a body without a soul.” Cicero said that?

I write this here because no one ever sees them, and thus, for posterity, I wish to record this little snippet of information about myself.