Friday, August 13, 2010

WeekWord: Collection

When I first saw the WeekWord over at Textilspanieln, I thought to myself, I no longer collect anything. I was remembering my old stamp collections which I gave away, my insect collections (which I still have, but no longer add to it), my coin collections and rock collections, that sort of thing. I was thinking of people who collect figurines or dolls or stuffed animals. Frog figures or pigs or elephants. Nope, I don't collect any of those things.

But I do collect things. Not always on purpose.

Cameras, for example:



And this is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg. Between us, my husband and I have hundreds of cameras. I don't collect them intentionally. He does. But I have almost as many as he does. He collects olf vintage cameras (even if they don't work). I want cameras that take good pictures. I want cameras that fit in my pocket. I want a spy camera, that no one can see me using. Yep. That's a confession--I want to be able to take pictures without disturbing people. Or making them angry.

Some of the things I collect might be considered a little odd. Like skulls. Once again, this is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg of my skull collection. But remember, I worked for 33 years as a naturalist and science educator. Skulls can teach us a lot about animals, their diet, their lives.




These are one goose skull and some gull skulls. I have deer and horse and cow and snake and hawk and rabbit and 'possom and raccoon and muskrat and many others.

Another group of things I "collect" (have a collection of) is house plants, including African violets. I guess this makes me officially and "old lady." Here are just two (three?) of many that grace my house and office. I love their colors and beauty, they cheer me up!

I also collect toilet paper tubes for someone who uses them in preschool!

10 comments:

junebug said...

The toilet paper rolls made me laugh. As someone who has worked at an elementary school I totally understood it.
I love the old cameras.

Anna Wallin said...

knock, knock
A greeting from the Anna
amazing collection you have ... fun to see them! I have a lot to me but it was enough to have a collection this time:) Many of the northern parts of Sweden have collections of skulls of various animals, many of them are hunters!

KEEP WELL
Your Sincerely
Anna W

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

Thank you Junebug and Anna! :-D

This was fun to think about. :-D

Elisabeth said...

Oh, I like these collections! :)

Christine E-E said...

I used to collect toilet paper rolls for my daughter... kindergarten teacher.

WOW! I can't imagine that many cameras. Are they displayed? being an educator I can understand having skulls (tools of the trade). My friend has a "bug collection" - the kind mounted on long pins (science teacher, of course)

Cool post!

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

No, we do not display the cameras--or any other collections except the houseplants (because they need light and pretty to look at). The cameras are, in my case, to use, and BB's are put away on shelves and in boxes. He gets them out, plays with them, puts them away again.

Thank you for your comments both. :-D

b said...

What an interesting post... Toilet paper rolls, huh? :-) B.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

The kids make things from them! :-D

S.E.Minegar said...

Wow! I envy your camera collection (unintentional as it may be). It is neat to imagine all of the memories you must have captured with them. When you look at a photo, are you able to remember which camera you used to snap it?

I think you need a pair of glasses with a secret camera in them. Then you'll be able to take sneaky photos and catch people in their most candid form.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

I can often tell which camera took which picture, but not always.

They have spy cameras built into sunglasses, but the quality isn't very good yet--I wasn't something that will take a decent picture.