Collections

What do you collect, and what does your collection say about you as an individual?  I have a collection of Airline Playing Cards, each box with beautiful images from different cities or different airplane models, Naturally, since I spent so much time playing cards, I loved receiving these decks of cards from my father who would travel often for work.  He would always return home with a deck of cards.  I considered each deck to be a token of his affection and appreciation for my particular passion for playing cards.  Now it turns out that I cannot add to my collection because the Airlines no longer distribute decks of cards.  Apparently, the time of playing cards has been relegated strictly to Casinos and preschools.  Travelers rarely bring out the deck of cards to play a friendly game of Crazy Eights or Gin Rummy with the traveler seated nearby.  I miss the sound of the riffling cards and the whish sound of the cards being artfully arched in a bridge finish. Those are the sounds of my childhood. These sounds have been replaced by the sound of iPhone dings or iPad ditties for electronic games.

I also own a matchbox collection, and this is not the matchbox car collection that my husband Gil owns from his childhood, but literally, boxes of matches.  I have collected matchboxes that were given away at restaurants - I always take if they are available, but now with the decline of smoking, (thank goodness), restaurants rarely give out free boxes of matches.  There was always something fascinating about matchboxes, I never could explain my interest to anybody.  However, my collection took on new meaning when I discovered that my grandfather in Taiwan also had a collection of matchboxes.  Of course, he was a smoker, so there was more of a natural explanation for it.  But now my matchbox collection connects me to my grandfather. Although smoking probably was not the best activity for him, I think it made him feel connected to me when he gave me his collection of matchboxes. So now I have his matchboxes, long after he has passed on. The matches remind me that my grandfather was a gregarious town politician and company owner, and smoking was typical behavior for businessmen at the time.

I wonder to whom I might be able to hand down my playing card collection...