A Cellar Full Of What??

Did I ever mention my friend who has a cellar filled with television cameras? Regular studio cameras that have run their life spans, 132 of them, which he tries to repair and get into working order. I’d love to have just one, although I don’t have the faintest idea where I’d keep it; they are fairly large and quite heavy. But 132 . . .

I met this lady in Vermont who collects salt and pepper shakers. Not the kind you see in diners, but the type with designs and those shaped like figurines; fancy stuff, five-and-dime stuff, yard sale stuff. She’s got them all over her house, but at least she doesn’t have tv cameras in her cellar.

There was an obituary in today’s paper for a middle-aged woman who “was an avid collector of Mickey Mouse memorabilia.” No one like me, who has Donald Duck stuff all over the place, has any right to laugh. But you won’t see that in my obit – if, that is, whoever survives me uses the notice that I wrote up for myself.

I’ve no problem with people who like to collect things, especially if the item is meaningful or fun. But I sometimes wonder, when I see some made-up coin or such in the Sunday color section with “start collecting this today!” if someone isn’t just creating a new category, rather than helping us find what will fill out the line we have.

I wonder about that guy and his cameras. We have chatted and he’s quite normal, a former broadcast engineer for ABC-TV. I’ll stick with the Donald Duck stuff.