Sometime in 1973, when I was 11, my grandfather,
Andy Hoeme, gave me an 1883
Liberty Head nickel. Enamored by the "ancient" coin, minted when
Chester Arthur was president, I tucked it away and vowed to get more like it. I loved the idea of owning a piece of the past.
I no longer have the nickel. I lost it somehow in the shuffle of youth, but I did not lose my passion for gathering tokens of times, places, and events. For more than fifty years, I have collected coins, stamps, buttons, passes, stickers, postcards, business cards, photographs, family records, coasters, receipts, menus, theater programs, and other memorabilia. If it can be put in a scrapbook, it is fair game.
Many of my holdings, like sports cards, event tickets, and autographs, are common collectibles. They are the kinds of things many hobbyists acquire. Other items are more unusual. Among my more "exotic" treasures are stamps from the Soviet Union, a D.C. transit pass, a matchbook cover from a bistro in Maine, a Ken Griffey Jr. bobblehead doll, a Glacier National Park pin, and a UK penny from 1936, when
three kings sat on the British throne.
Many items are souvenirs of experiences. They include a ticket to a 1981 Rolling Stones concert, a program to a "Mary Poppins" performance in Montana, a ticket to the 2002 Fiesta Bowl, lift tickets to several ski resorts, and a day pass to Disneyland. I took my family to the park in 2005, its fiftieth year.
Though I have collected memorabilia for decades, I did not seriously examine or inventory my collection until January, shortly after I published my last novel and began a much-needed break from writing. Only then did I grasp what I had amassed over the years.
I no longer had a few boxes and notebooks of keepsakes, but rather several. I spent the next seven weeks inspecting, sorting, and arranging the currency, coins, and ephemera in my closets. As I did, I realized something profound. When people collect like I have for as long as I have, they do more than fill albums and scrapbooks. They preserve a bit of history. They gather the odds and ends of their lives.
Though all of my souvenirs, mementos, and collectibles are valuable, at least to me, some are particular noteworthy. These include several items that remind me of relatives, friends, and acquaintances who have passed away. Foremost in this group are signed cards and a long thank-you letter from
Harmon Killebrew, a baseball legend who knew my mother,
Mary Heldt, when they were youths in the small town of Payette, Idaho. (I met the slugger himself at an exhibition game in Tacoma, Washington, in 1974.) Killebrew wrote to my parents after they wished him well following a surgery in 1990. I inherited his thoughtful correspondence after my mom died four years ago this week.
From my father-in-law, I acquired foreign bills, stamps, and coins, including some from nations that no longer exist. Bert Fellows, who passed away in 2024, was a world traveler who rarely passed up an opportunity to collect and preserve the interesting and new.
Another item, a paper coaster from the Gibson House in Seattle, reminds me of a night on the town in 1982. Like two of the four fraternity brothers who drove up from Oregon on break to help me celebrate my twenty-first birthday, the gritty, eclectic bar is no longer around.
Some keepsakes are too big for a scrapbook. Take the U.S. flag I ordered for my father,
James Heldt, when I worked in Washington, D.C. for a congressman. Workers hoisted the flag over the U.S. Capitol on June 22, 1984, folded it, boxed it, and mailed it to my dad. He kept it, in pristine condition, until he died last year. It is now back in my hands, waiting for the day I can again pass it along.
I will set collecting aside in the coming months. I have people to see, places to visit, and another novel to write, but I will not give up gathering and preserving memorabilia. As I have learned in five decades of collecting memories, once you start, you cannot stop.
Images: A ticket to the
Rolling Stones concert in Seattle's
Kingdome on October 14, 1981.
Pete Rose's 1982 Topps player card. An
Elvis Presley stamp from the early 1990s. (Note the price.) A 1948 British Half Crown. A vintage postcard from Waikiki Beach, Hawaii.
