Rinker on Collectibles

RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1604

Nostalgia Is Not the Enemy

On Saturday, October 7, I was listening to “The Moth Radio Hour” on 104.1 FM, the West Michigan tower of Michigan Radio, 91.7 FM in Ann Arbor. I caught the middle and end of a commentary by Morgan Zipf-Meister entitled “The Closet That Ate Everything.” [http://player.themoth.org/#/?actionType=ADD_AND_PLAY&storyId=14694] The dialogue line that caught my attention was “Nostalgia is the enemy of all successful cleaning expeditions.” One part of my brain agreed. The other part, which I trust explicitly, wanted to shout “BULLS___.” Nostalgia is not the enemy. It is a friend.

Ms. Zipf-Meister’s story centered around the Pittsburg home where she spent the first 25 years of her life and her mother, who she described as a packrat verging into a hoarder. The mother observed every holiday—religious, secular, or personal—with unbounded enthusiasm. At Christmas, she place a decorated tree in every room of the house. She took and saved thousands of photographs and accumulated a large amount of personal event mementoes. The mother was enamored with memory. I identify with her.

Ms. Zipf-Meister’s mother died. She returned from her Brooklyn apartment to her childhood home the Christmas following her mother’s death to recapture the family’s Christmas memories for her father and friends. Shortly thereafter, her father called and informed his daughter that he was selling the family homestead. Ms. Zipf-Meister was faced with the daunting task of dealing with the physical remains of her mother’s memories. She admitted that she “could never wrap her head around having so much stuff.”

[Author’s Aside: Ms. Zipf-Meister briefly mentioned she was having difficulty dealing with the concept that she was losing her home, a part of her life to which she could never go back. The issue of recapturing the past by returning to the physical location where it occurred is a separate topic, one I will explore in detail in a future “Rinker on Collectibles” column.]

Ms. Zipf-Meister’s Pittsburgh home contained “A Closet That Ate Everything” in her mother’s bedroom. If something was lost, Ms. Zipf-Meister opened the closet door. Lo and behold, there it was. The process felt uncanny and mystical. Again, she did not understand why.

Ms. Zipf-Meister, who openly admits she is a minimalist, initially planned to avoid engaging with her mother’s stuff, sort it, and then throw it out. The flaw in her logic is evident from the start. If her goal was to throw everything out, there was no need to sort. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but curiosity and not nostalgia is one of the enemies of a successful cleaning expedition.

Ms. Zipf-Meister’s plan of attack bogged down the minute she started going through the family photographs. All of a sudden, these inanimate objects became real. Real also is the enemy of a successful cleaning expedition. Real created a living, breathing entity. Throw a “real” thing out and you murder it.

The piece de resistance was a cardboard box that held all the family greeting cards that had been exchanged between husband and wife and parent and child. Ms. Zipf-Meister found a first birthday card filled with 1983 pennies. The cards documented the first 25 years of Ms. Zipf-Meister’s life. Looking over her shoulder, Ms. Zipf-Meister’s father noted he distinctly remembered throwing a specific card into the trash basket by his desk. The mother had retrieved and saved it.

Ms. Zipf-Meister had no room for this box in her Brooklyn apartment. She needed to find a rationale to throw it out. She found one. She decided that these were her mother’s and not her memories. Discarding them was logical and sensible. No further justification was needed.

Yes, it is. Once again, Ms. Zipf-Meister’s argument is flawed. First, the cards took her on a trip down Nostalgia Alley. She looked at everyone. Everyone evoked a memory. Second, her mother had created a gift—saved memories that Ms. Zipf-Meister was too young to save herself. Her mother understood these cards created a heritage link between mother and daughter that would keep memories alive long after the mother’s death.

Ms. Zipf-Meister’s story ends by sharing with the listeners the two things she took back to Brooklyn—the First Birthday card with the 1938 pennies and one box of Christmas ornaments. How tragic that she felt compelled to reduce her memories to these few items.

I have been haunted by this story since I first heard it. I listened to it several times since on https://themoth.org. The more I listened, the sadder I became.

Has society returned to a Victorian definition of nostalgia as a fatal disease? In the 19th century, nostalgia led to loss of appetite, nausea, a lump in the throat, a “funny” empty feeling in the stomach, and more. This is the price the Victorians paid to be progressive.

This is not how nostalgia is defined in 21st century terms. Nostalgia is a trip down memory lane, a return to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Nostalgia is a shot of adrenaline to the brain that creates a euphoric feeling of happiness and well-being. Rather than reject nostalgia, bathe in it. Give it a chance to make your life better.

The “I am not a saver” group rejects the sentimentalism caused by nostalgia. The past is not prologue. The past has passed. There is no need to look back—to infinity and beyond without asking how or why the journey is possible.

Nostalgia has a variety of focuses. Personal experiences are most common. Everyone has personal stories. When told or remembered, they bring a smile to a face or a tear to the eye. Far too many individuals keep these experiences private, locked inside themselves and not shared. They never sat around a campfire.

Ms. Zipf-Meister needs to read a few articles and books describing the value of passing on cultural and societal heritage through oral transmission and writing. None advocate eliminating the past by erasing it from memory. Unfortunately, just such an approach is indicative of today’s younger generations. It is easy to understand why “respect your elders” and “cherish your past” has little meaning in the 21st century.

Objects evoke nostalgia. The concept is bigger than an object owned by the observer. In addition to the objects they owned, individuals remember a great many objects they did not. The reasons are varied. The inability of their parents to afford them or their refusal to buy them for some reason or another is irrelevant. In many cases, the actual object does not have to be present. A picture will do.

Nostalgia is regional, institutional, social, cultural, sexist, and more. It is closely related to loyalty. It can even be politically or socially incorrect. It is the product of nurture and not nature. Everyone longs for some “Good Old Days.”

In terms of collecting, nostalgia is more than a desire to own an object and the positive feelings such possession creates. It is also about the myriad of stories associated with the object—acquisition, research, care, and sharing. Collectors and collecting is nostalgia focused because the focus is the past. Collectors save and preserve. They are caretakers between owners. The present is a better place because of their understanding of the past.

Ms. Zipf-Meister’s limitation on preserving ample objects that provoke past personal memories is disheartening. She fails to understand the intangibleness of her memories. They will die with her, just as her mother’s memories died when Ms. Zipf-Meister threw out the box of greeting cards. As far as Ms. Zipf-Meister is concerned, her heirs will not be burdened with a pile of stuff to go through and throw out. One can only hope her children do not rue her decision.

I take multiple trips down nostalgia lane every day. I am surrounded by my past and those from generations of individuals who preceded me, many of which I know only though the objects I possess. Although my nostalgia trips are brief, they are a critical part of who I am. Before concluding this column, I looked around my office area again. As I click the “Save” button, there is a huge smile on my face.

Harry L. Rinker welcomes questions from readers about collectibles, those mass-produced items from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Selected letters will be answered in this column. Harry cannot provide personal answers. Photos and other material submitted cannot be returned. Send your questions to: Rinker on Collectibles, 5955 Mill Point Court SE, Kentwood, MI 49512. You also can e-mail your questions to harrylrinker@aol.com. Only e-mails containing a full name and mailing address will be considered.

You can listen and participate in WHATCHA GOT?, Harry’s antiques and collectibles radio call-in show, on Sunday mornings between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM Eastern Time. If you cannot find it on a station in your area, WHATCHA GOT? streams live on the Internet at www.gcnlive.com.

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