This is my response to the 25 things challenge.  It was originally posted on Facebook, but I removed it during the Facebook Terms of Service shit storm of February 2009.  Since then, I’ve decided to use Facebook only for social networking.  Any of my creative output, such as photos or writing, will go on my own web sites, or on Flickr, where they respect their users’ intellectual property.  Occasionally, I will post links on Facebook.

I enjoyed writing my 25 things, and truly enjoyed reading other people’s 25 things.  That’s not narcissistic (as some newspaper stories about the trend alleged).  It’s a way to connect with people who are interesting.  As far as relationships go, the rest is up to us to follow through on.  A social networking site can’t do that for us.

Here are the rules:  “Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.”

1. I love tea. I hardly ever drink coffee. I love tea so much that I coined the phrase, “Tea…the other brown drink.” Yeah, that was me.

2. I avoid wearing light blue shirts or blouses because they remind me of the uniform I wore for eight years in Catholic school. Needless to say, saddle shoes are totally out of the question.

3. I went to the first 15 years of the Clifftop old-time music festival, and then got completely burnt out on the festival camping. I miss the people, the music, and the dancing, but not enough to camp there.

4. A few years ago, I finally found a sweet man who is at least as smart, if not smarter, than me. So, I married him.

5. I got married for the first time the day after I turned 52. Better late than never.

6. I have two black and white cats. One is named after the late, great Dave Grant. The other is not.

7. I was in Washington, D.C. working on Capitol Hill, on September 11, 2001. Ever since then, I always make sure I have comfortable shoes with me at work, so I can walk the ten miles home in an emergency, if I have to.

8. I learned Appalachian clogging in 1980, and picked up the banjo in 1986. Now I’m learning to play the ukulele.

9. I have three sisters and two brothers. I’m the third.

10. I had never heard of the Weekly World News until my younger sister was in it for teaching Bible study in the nude.

11. Most of my life, I haven’t worn make-up. I guess I’m more interested in cosmology than cosmetics. However, I have begun to wear a little lipstick now and then, because I am tired of seeing photographs of myself in which I look like I don’t have any lips.

12. Until I got on Facebook, I thought my name was unique. Then I got a friend request from someone named Julie Mangin. I checked her friend list, and she had another Julie Mangin already on it. Every once in a while my FB feed says something like, “Julie Mangin is a fan of KFC chicken,” and I think “how do they know?” before remembering it’s the OTHER Julie Mangin.

13. My niece and I share a birthday. On my wedding day, she went into labor and had to leave fifteen minutes before the ceremony began. If her daughter had been born a day earlier, all three of us would have had the same birthday.

14. I have souvenir plates from the Maryland amusement park, The Enchanted Forest, which I sell on eBay.

15. I’ve always wanted to do something on stage in the Galax band contest that would cause the Moose Lodge to create another contest rule. It would be referred to as the “Julie Rule.”

16. Every weekday, I read the Washington Post comics section on the subway in the morning. If I have time, I do the sudoku, too.

17. I’m thinking of retiring in a couple of years.

18. I’m the first person to win a prize in the Washington Post’s Style Invitational contest for an entry that they deemed too vulgar to print. Gene Weingarten called it, “a hilarious entry too revolting to be published on any planet inhabited by sentient beings.” I didn’t think it was that bad.

19. I used to be known as the Clog Mogul of D.C., but I always preferred to be called an impresario.

20. I have the world’s largest collection of Mark Eden Bust Developers. They are among the many tacky treasures I collect.

21. I have had one of my photographs published in People Magazine.

22. If I could start my own religion, I’d make Girl Scout Thin Mints the communion wafer. I would encourage meditation while listening to Uncle Bunt Stephens play “Candy Girl.” One of the sacraments would involve crabs, fresh tomatoes, corn on the cob, and beer.

23. I used to smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes a day until the late 1970s. I quit because I was struggling through music school, and I needed to drop the smoke breaks to get more study and practice time in.

24. When I was in my 20s, I learned to drive a motorcycle. On the first day of driving class, I kick-started my motorcycle in gear, launched myself six feet in the air, and landed on all fours. On the last day, I got the highest score on the driving test. The instructor called me his most improved student.

25. I received a masters degree in library science about 25 years ago, and started working as a librarian. Now, I’m a web developer who writes dynamic pages in PHP/MySQL. What the hell happened?

This is a report of a trip I took to Crumpton, Maryland, on July 16, 2003. I’m going to try to get back there soon.

This is the $5 yard, meaning that the minimum bid for anything is $5. You can’t see it in this picture, but the items in this category covered about two football fields of space. I know what you are thinking, “you mean, I could have that porch glider for only $5?” Well, only if no one else wants it.

This tacky treasure was found in the barn, where the minimum bid is $10. I would have loved to have this faded print of a 19th century ballet theme, in a 1950s era “modern” frame. An extra bonus is the glitter someone put on the tutus of all the dancers, plus the male lead’s costume.

The $20 yard had nicer furniture, art, and crafts. Some of the items were not old; a few artists brought in their work to try to sell it by auction.

If an item isn’t about to sell, and there isn’t a prospective buyer guarding it, you can have fun with them.

After the auctioneer passed, and the winners and the pickers had done their work, the $5 yard looked desolate.

The only problem with the auction is that it is so huge. There were a few things that I might have liked to acquire, but I could tell that it would have been hours before the auctioneer would get to them. You can’t just take them up to the register like you can in an antique store.

Some day, I’ll go there when I’ve got time to spend all day. Who knows what I’ll find at Dixon’s Furniture Auction!

If you are a collector, you know that it’s an inclination in you that not all of your family or friends will understand. Sometimes motivated by lofty goals such as preservation of a particular symbol of our culture, other times motivated by greed or the need to possess; collectors come in all sizes, shapes, and temperaments. Even among obsessive collectors, not all collecting behavior is alike. On a recent trip to Orrtanna, Pennsylvania, I checked out two local attractions, which I think proved exactly that. It’s odd that both of these places are about an eighth of a mile away from each other, so similar in the sheer size of their collections, and yet so different in other ways.

First, we visited Mister Ed’s Elephant Museum. You can’t miss it, if you’re driving on Route 30 between Gettysburg and Chambersburg. There’s a life-sized elephant named Commander Robert Eli standing in the yard, spouting water into a pond. Behind him are two life-sized giraffes; not a common sight at all in the Buchanan Valley area of Pennsylvania. Coming up from the gravel parking lot, you see another large elephant sculpture: Ellie Phant, who bats her eyes and talks to visitors. It was fun taking pictures of the outdoor sculptures in the yard, but the real entertainment is inside.

Ed Gotwalt’s collection of elephants, which began in 1975, numbers over 6,000. Not one of them is a real elephant. But it is an amazing assemblage of representations of elephants from many countries and cultures. Some are whimsical, some life-like, and some even functional (how about a elephant-shaped potty seat for toddlers?).

As you wander through the “museum,” you find rooms of elephants, giraffes, t-shirts, etc., that are for sale, that is, not part of the collection. Okay, so it’s also a giant gift store, too. But somehow it’s not as in-your-face a tourist trap as South of the Border is. And Mister Ed’s really delivers, because his collection, in all its awesome size, is on display throughout the building. Then you discover that he also sells candy and roasted peanuts. We found this an enjoyable place to spend an hour. Here are some photographs that I took which I posted on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tackyjulie/sets/72157604747475283/

On the other side of the road, and just up the road a small piece, there is the barn at Orrtanna. You can’t miss it, either, but for a different reason. It’s a fairly large barn, with a faded Mail Pouch tobacco advertisement on it, as well as one for the local playhouse, the Totem Pole. But what really catches your eye is all the junk in the front yard.

I visit a lot of antique and thrift stores, but this one is different. There’s so much stuff, but most of it is not worth buying. In fact, there were bushel baskets full of a ceramic object whose name and purpose neither Bob nor I could identify. I’d like to think that at one time, there had been things of value in this place, but it was bought up by smart collectors. However, I can’t make that work in my head. There’s just too much crap (in the yard, that is; not in my head). About half of the junk is out in the yard, all day and all night, throughout the year. Much of it is broken or rusty, and should be hauled off to the dump. There are hundreds of bottles, but none of them are remarkable. Someone should tell the owner that there’s a difference between collectibles and recyclables, and what he has are recyclables.

Inside the barn, there were things that wouldn’t have lasted outside, such as books, records, papers, clothes, leather, etc. But this is not a climate-controlled environment that would preserve their condition much better than leaving them out in the yard. And I cannot discuss this place without mentioning that the barn has the scariest floor I have ever walked on, and that includes Mark Cline’s haunted house. At any moment, I thought I might fall through the plywood floor, yet my curiosity at what I might find kept me walking slowly, but carefully, onward.

Most of the time, we wandered alone, with no sign of a salesperson anywhere. Then, a couple of times, an old man popped out, seemingly out of nowhere, to ask if we had any questions. Later, when I actually did find something worth purchasing (a teacup and three small bowls made of melamine plastic), it took me ten minutes to find him. I asked him how much, and he said “Fifty cents.” “Each?” I asked. No, he said, fifty cents for all of them. I felt sorry for the guy, and told him I would give him one dollar. It’s one of the few times I’ve actually talked a seller UP.

I think the owner of this barn is a hoarder, which is a totally different kind of obsessive collecting than what Mister Ed does. There’s no point to it, nothing to be learned by looking at all the old and broken and worthless things that he has amassed. They may even be a health hazard.

On the other hand, it was visually compelling to view the breadth of the detritus that is stored there. The photographs I posted on Flickr may give a better idea. Be sure to look for the mystery object, and if you know what it is, please contact me. Otherwise, it may haunt me for the rest of my life. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tackyjulie/sets/72157604747455535/

Bob and I both collect things. I’m less serious about collecting, or perhaps my gathering is less focused than some people. I like a little clutter because it makes my environment interesting, but I don’t like too much junk just sitting around not justifying its presence. Bob is more like Mister Ed. He only collects pencil sharpeners. He even bought two pencil sharpeners from Mister Ed’s, although neither were of elephants. Go figure. Eventually, photographs of them will show up on http://www.bobcantor.com/. I wonder if Bob would consider re-naming his collection “Mister Bob’s Pencil Sharpener Museum?

I remember talking to another collector friend when I first met Bob, and told her that he collected pencil sharpeners. Being another collector, she did not think it weird. She sounded almost envious that I had found a potential mate that understood collecting. Lucky me! As time went on, I found he had even more admirable traits.