After 57 years, I have collected a lot of random stuff, Over the years it has been easier not to go through the storage bins in the garage. My wife and I make Spring Cleaning “dates” when the settled dust is thick on lids.
It is probably easier to catalog my collection:
Childhood
- program from my elementary school musical singing days
- picture – collared shirt, bowl haircut
- blue “participation” ribbons (california!)
- clay rabbit I made at 4 years old
- a letter from my Grampa (“man”) to me before he died in 1966
High School
- transcript copies: two years in Cape Cod, MA ; two years in Tucson, AZ
- picture of me in a Revolutionary War uniform (We got to carry and shoot black powder muskets!)
- A few polished stones and pumice (rock collection)
- Stamp collection of USA and foreign stamps
- pocket knives
Navy (first time)
- bootcamp yearbook
- pictures of friends from the technical school at Great Lakes and Pensacola
1980s
- college pictures with two groups of friends
- sample of toilet paper, sugar, and wrapping paper from a college Soviet Union trip
- ticket stub from the Los Angeles PINK FLOYD concert (the Wall)
- A scuba mask from scuba diving days
Navy (second time)
- pictures in my cracker jacks re-enlisting at the new Navy Memorial (Plankowner)
- certificates, several framed of ceremonies (Shellback, Golden Shellback, Panama Canal)
- trinkets, cigarette lighters, jewelry and perfume bottles from Egypt, Japan, Greece, France and every point in between
Married life and family (2001 -)
- youngest son’s baseball items from Little League All-Star selection
- more random, but expensive, trinkets – “ART”
- travel mementos , mugs, coins, crafts
Truths, Half-truths, and Sea Stories 