Gettin' older?
Collectin' more 'stuff'?

by Don Norris

The things we collect. The older we grow, the more things we collect. And that's probably why, when some old recluse passes on, his survivors find a house jammed with, with, with everything. Everything (well, almost everything) he has bought or borrowed through his life may just be in that stuff that he left behind. Most of it he never used, or used maybe once. The problem is, is he me? Am I approaching that age of senility when everything I touch becomes a treasure? Look at this computer room. You can hardly find room for another chair -- actually you can hardly find the chair itself, for it's under one huge pile of more stuff. I happened upon a few of these sacred cows this morning. And a bright idea came to me -- that if I photograph them, file the photo in the computer, then toss the original item out, look at all the space I'll recover! Shooting reflections in the window. Like those clothes hooks. I bet you wouldn't even venture a guess where they came from. Try, Coolidge School, right on Main Street in Melrose. When the town decided they didn't need that old (1888) school, they sold it to a developer, who saw its beauty and converted it into condominiums. Then I wandered in during the move-out, and disengaged these five clothes-hooks from (get this) the Cloak Room. We don't have Cloak Rooms anymore. Today we get a locker. Those hooks are a lot older than I am. In spite of their intrinsic value, I have not yet had use for them, and I have owned them for just about a quarter century. But I'm not going to toss them yet. I have this idea that if I get a nice pine board, stain it walnut, then carefully attach my five Coolidge Cloak Room hooks, that will make a really nice statement. What it says I don't know, but the idea is there. I'll do it first thing tomorrow. February 4, 2005

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