Jeepers, Keepers

Some people are born collectors and I count myself among them. By the time I first headed overseas, I had collected decades of National Geographic magazines. It was a pretty solid representation right back through some bound 1914 sets. Obviously and perhaps thankfully, travel and living in different countries prevented me from keeping much of an intact inventory. I left my poor dad with the responsibility of disposing of those magazines. In retrospect though there might be a few genes involved here as he always kept a barnful of junk!

Interestingly, computers have allowed me to pursue collecting in a manner that doesn't take up much space at all. I have all the Wordstar-format personal and business letters created on my first IBM compatible in 1986. (Did I burn those on a CD yet?) Sometimes the data isn't even accessible in a readable format. (I don't think the current version of Excel can read my old VisiCalc spreadsheets but DOS Lotus 1-2-3 used to.)

In many cases, information for its own sake is worth keeping. I could have erased this file of Top-40 Songs: 1975-79 Arranged by 1st Date Charted. This must have been used when I produced a 6-CD set of music for our 25th high school reunion in 2002. I imagine that this must have been part of my research. Yet why should I press delete and send this to byte heaven? Storage media grows cheaper by the year ... and keeping it has provided me something to post on my blog today!

Half-Megabyte Musical Chart Listing