[Rockhounds] Disposing of collections

[tango juli]

Axel commented on those who will have to dispose of our collections (children usually, fire dept in other cases) in our wake. Recently out in the desert somewhere, friends and I discovered a dump pile in the middle of nowhere onprivate land to be developed soon. Someone just opened up the tailgate and pressed eject. We totally enjoyed it, but it was like an archaeological dig, and we learned a lot about the former owner. My friends were thrilled to dig thru the historic bottle collection dating back to the 1890s and found slabs with cab outlines someone once planned to cut, jade, and other locality peices my friends recognized with breathless excitement. We found beautiful geodes and hunks of vivid chrysocolla that were dumped along with the detritus of a garage--wheel ramps, an old push sweeper, a 70s bicycle, a broom, old oil cans, etc. I found a collection of tabasco bottles, and very old pop bottle collection. I found what turned out to be a nice
 hunk of turquoise. The 1950s coleman lamp and 1970s olive oil can are now part of my historic junk collection. 
The tin cooking utensils were mended by someone practically minded, but the assemblage was a reminder that someday someone will see much of our uncatelogued boxes and crates of unlabelled rocks and minerals as junk to be disposed of (with the exception of Kreigh :). My fiance has a list of a couple people to call in case of my demise to dispose of my collection. Hopefully they will remember where I've been, because I've been lazy in the last year or two of labelling stuff. (smile)
And instead of reading email, playing with topo maps and planning my next trip, maybe I need to be out cleaning out my garage which is now a shrine to collecting....
...tina 


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