Trinkets

As a kid, everyone held onto unnecessary trinkets. When you’re young, everything seems so intricate and shiny. I’ve loved collecting things since childhood. Sometimes the things I chose to collect were a bit strange. Looking back, I can remember collecting brochures from resorts and business cards from a selection of places. Even erasers, stacks of bookmarks, pennies specifically from parking lots, and other oddities found their way into my collections. I’m not exactly sure why I had such a habit of keeping things, but I have an idea. My Dad’s parents were slightly hoarders. They kept magazines, random furnishings, and always tried to find deals to buy other useless objects. Luckily, their house was always neat and free of trash. When I was young, my grandma noticed my love to read and would always let me pick a bookmark or two from her collection when we visited. That started my hobby of keeping bookmarks. To this day, I still have a variety of collections, but I should start by more thoroughly explaining where in my childhood these collections started.

When I was younger, I had a tendency to collect odd things. My biggest collection happened to be business cards. Yes, ten-year-old me felt they were very important. I always swiped them at events, parties, hospitals, offices, and even from my dad’s friends. I had favorite cards. My Dad’s private investigator card and one of my PaPa’s from when he worked in construction. I collected plain black and white cards, thick and fancy cards, unique ones with pretty designs or colors, and I even had different sized ones. I stashed them all in my top dresser sure they would be safe from my parents that liked to throw away the special (useless) collections I had. From the span of age seven to around ten or so, I can vividly recall a variety of occasions where I remember picking up a business card. One of the times we went to the state fair I picked up a State Farm agent card from a booth there. When my PaPa got knee surgery, I swiped a diverse collection of doctor and nurse cards from the hospital. At my great Grandfather’s funeral, I picked up the funeral directors’ cards. Every hotel we went to I’d pick up a card or two from the “Leave your business card here!” stashes they had in the lobbies. I remember grinning and swiping through the card hauls I got from festivals that had endless booths, feeling like I was holding a stack of hundred-dollar bills in my hands. I remember the feeling I felt when I happened to catch a good card. It could be closely compared to the rush of unwrapping a Christmas gift from Santa. The best ones had cool patterns or raised text. I got a few different cards from my PaPa and Dad who frequently changed work sites. My Dad was always switching jobs. He worked in a prison, as a private investigator, and even in cybersecurity. Back then, you could trace his work history by the pile of cards I held from him. From my PaPa, I had various construction work related cards. You could follow his promotion and company changes by my collection. I was a proud owner of hundreds of cards. Eventually though, all good things end. My mother happened to find my hoard one evening. Originally, my whole collection sat in the bottom of our crusty kitchen trash. After a tantrum, tears, and promises to do more chores, I was allowed to pick through and save my dad and PaPa’s cards. To this day I still treasure them and keep them tucked away in a small drawer in my desk. My final memory of that time happens later that night when I was doing the dishes. I sat wiping away the seemingly endless tears. Perhaps I could call losing my card collection my first heartbreak.

My second biggest collection that I think of when I look back on my childhood, is definitively my coin collection. Since I was a kid, I’ve held onto every cool coin I encountered. I have those oval pennies from the churning machine they have at museums, a silver coin with the Michelin mascot engraved into it, a variety of laundromat coins, arcade coins, and even some Canadian currency that was often mixed in with US currency. Up in Minnesota, it was common to get change back and have a Canadian quarter or penny thrown in. There is so many random coins in my collection that I would have half a page of a list before I got even close to the diversity that the dusty Crown Royale bag that holds my coins contains. That bag itself has a story; it was given to me by my grandma. One specific coin I think of, without even having to open that royal purple bag, is a thick wooden coin with faded black text on it. I got it when I was around nine years old at the renaissance fair. I climbed a rock wall that was literally a thousand feet tall! Well, back then it was. I think now a days its maybe twenty feet tall. I even had actual collector’s coins before, that was until my brother, who was maybe four or five, took them to preschool with him and they were never seen again. When I pick up that velvety sack and peer into it, I see glints of gold. Glints of cheap gold. There is a variety of plastic, gold pirate doubloons from birthday parties, restaurants, or wherever else kids get those. There is a crisp stack of bills tucked into that metallic scented bag too. Unfortunately, its just cut-out counting money from when I was in third grade. With the twine that holds the bag closed deteriorated beyond bag closing ability, I spill it out in front of me. I see copper, silver, and red. That red coin is some Christian sobriety coin, I’m not sure why I have it. I have currency from Kuwait, where my dad was briefly stationed. Weighing the frail bag down is a hefty, bronze coin in remembrance of The Alamo. While flicking through the scattered coins, a small piece of copper colored metal catches my eyes. I see the Abe on a penny has been carved out. I remember my Grandma giving it to me and telling me how a boy in her shop class had a crush on her and presented it to her as a gift. Well, she didn’t marry him so she had no use for it. I remember being fascinated with it and tracing along its surprisingly smooth edges. The last coin that caught my attention was a Japanese Yen coin. It’s a small, light silver coin with intrinsic designs and delicate lettering. The pretty tree or bush engraved on the back is what grabbed my eye. With all of my coins laid out from my childhood, the curiosity I had back then once again swells up inside me. I see myself once more on my childhood bedroom floor turning my coins over and holding them up to the light, trying to squint out all the history from those bits of metal.

 

Kate Stark is a 21 year old South Carolina resident born and raised in Minnesota. She loves animals and nature and also enjoys gardening and playing video games.