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10 SOUTHERN SENIOR MAGAZINE | Fall 2021 To Collect or Not to Keep… Collecting is a natural human, or should I say warm blooded animal, habit. Squirrels collect nuts for winter food, beavers gather small logs to build the right homes. Even birds collect straw and string for the most supportive nests. However, only humans collect items for pure personal pleasure. Some things like figural cake pans may remind someone of their mother’s holiday baking. Some- thing like an antique oil lamp might remind another person of Grandma’s night light. Then again, a per- son could enjoy owning the fine China cups that were kept safely out of reach in a neighbor’s glass fronted cabinet. There’s, also, the one who enjoys using tools he saw his uncle master to repair broken farm equipment while growing up. One comment that is often heard from visitors to an antique mall is, “Wow! I haven’t seen these since I was a kid.”, or “Those older things were made to last and hardly ever broke down.” Often sorting through the storage shed or garage at an estate sale can yield the most sort after and hard to find collectibles. Those are the apparatuses that never stopped doing what they were made to do. They simply got replaced by newer innovative in- ventions. A little cleaning and power puts them right Cont. pg 12 Lynne Adams Barze’ author-writer-poet.net