Monday, April 10, 2017

Lost Treasures

Here is the post I had just finished when I got some horrific news.  Please read on:

What are your tiny treasures?

I love tiny treasures.  You know, tiny toys found in the bottom of cereal boxes, Matchbox Cars, tiny souvenirs from trips, etc.  Most totally worthless, but I hold on to these tiny relics because of the memories they represent.  Each tiny piece brings me right back to person, place, experience.  I know that some people say that "It's just stuff",  but to me they are precious.

Why do we amass all this tiny stuff we don’t need?

Philipp Blom, a cultural historian, writes:

Objects and their organization bind us to something larger than ourselves, and as religion was born out of a fear of death and the wish of eternal life, collecting expresses the same fundamental urges.  For example, carefully arranged around the sarcophagus of pharaoh’s tomb representatives of the king’s possessions, of the wealth and the resources he needs to live on in the afterworld. Their presence is symbolic, but it assures survival. It is remarkable how many collectors chose to be immortalized through their collections, either by naming and donating them.

While I doubt anyone will be fighting over my “Nixon Now” button, Harry Chapin autographed concert ticket,  G.I. Joe dog tag, an arrowhead, vintage 1968 Frito-Lay Frito Bandito rubber pencil top eraser in mint condition, one of my wisdom teeth (yes, you read that correctly),  I still feel the need to save and collect my relics from the past.

But, how to display them?

The answer:  I spent some valuable time and resources this weekend converting a one-hundred-year-old dresser and some old printers’ trays into a Tiny Treasure Display Case.



By my calculation, I now have 490 individual tiny compartments to store my tiny treasures (more if I double them up) plus an entire section for larger objects.   I will now start the process of sectioning them into categories including relics from grandparents, parents, early childhood, family, and “I’ve forgotten where I got this, but I still think that it’s damn cool!”

My relics and relics from past Kuhn and Riley generations.  I can't explain it, but my urge to collect is impossible to ignore: it touches the very depths of who I am.

Or, maybe I just love my ny stuff and the memories they represent.  

What are some of your favorite tiny relics?

 (END OF POST)


I was writing this post today when I got word that a fire at my sister-in-law's apartment building took everything she owned away from her.  All of her possessions -- including photographs, family heirlooms, tiny treasures of great personal connection -- painfully gone!

Thankfully, no one was hurt or killed. Still . . .

I can't imagine.

Carpe Diem Life,
David Kuhn

CarpeDiem-Life.com

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