The Stuff on My Shelves

OK, I said I would do it, and I might as well get it over with.

What do I have on my home office bookshelves (other than books).

First, the ground rules.

1. Perfect honesty.

2. Short descriptions.

3. No books included (except for "ephemera" that is there more for show than content)

Here goes:

A. The shelf as you enter the room.

a. Five St. Louis Browns baseball cards: Clint Courtney, Vic Wertz, Ken Wood, Bill Hunter and Johnny Groth (with that talent, why did they move to Baltimore?)

b. St. Louis Bar Association mug (I think from 1974, its 100th anniversary), which contains the left-over paper money from various trips (not enough to retire on), including Euros, Canadian dollars, Israeli shekels, English pounds, French francs, Spanish pesatas, Russian rubles.

c. A stand-up movable Valentine's Day card that says: "This gay parrot loves to say "Fondest Greetings on Valentine's Day". The head of the parrot moves (if you move it)

d. Two dinner place cards, one with my name and one with my wife's, with pictures of the Jefferson Memorial on them, the photograph made by a former lawyer in my office.

e. The official program of the visit of President and Mrs. Kennedy to Canada in May 1961. Contains an hour by hour detailed program.

f. Two marble fountain pen stands (and pens), one grey and one green, which belonged to my parents.

g. A ticket to see Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg at Bayreuth on Sunday, August 5, 1956.

h. A Barricini candy tin with pictures of old synagogue interiors in Vienna, London, Amsterdam and Florence, and which used to contain "vanilla flavored dark caramel almondettes"

i. A Austro-Hungarian 1000 Kroner bill from 1902, and a German 100,000 mark note from 1923.

j. A snap shot of my wife

h. A bookmark from El Lector, Asuncion, Paraguay (located at the corner of 25 de Mayo and Antequera).

i. A brass circular tray with a turkish coffee pot and six cups (ceramic inners, and brass outers) which, for reasons unclear to me, I think comes from Saudi Arabia.

j. A cloth shoulder patch waiting to be sewn on the right shirt or jacket, from a volunteer fire department in California that bears my last name.

k. A large globe, dating from the early 1960s, which is printed in Russian and comes from the USSR. Interestingly, no political boundaries are shown. Just natural formations (rivers, mountains, etc.) and cities.

l. Two framed photographs I took some years ago in Seattle with a panoramic camera, one showing barrels at a winery, and one showing spices in jars in the downtown market (Pike Market?)

m. a Lenox white and gold candlestick, which happens to match perfectly another one that we have that is broken and that I have been supposed to fix now for about two years.

n. a small bowl of artificial bing cherries, that look good enough to eat.

o. a table card from the Vaad Hoeir of St. Louis, guaranteeing the the meal is kosher (I stole this from a wedding table, when the son of a friend was married; thought it might come in handy)

p. a cookie (still in cellophane) in the shape of a St. Louis Cardinal.

q. three mazzuzahs, one of which was my father in law's (and might have come from Poland), one of which has no known provenance, and one of which was given to me as thanks for serving the board of a local Jewish day school.

r. two guides to having fun in Havana, one from 1948 and one from 1951

s. a small book by Christopher Morley, called "The goldfish under the ice", signed in a limited edition by Morley.

t. brochures on the Jewish communities of old New Mexico and of Morroco, on the life of Jackie Robinson, and on the art of colonial Peru.

B. Bookcase #1.

a. an empty Camel cigarette package from France, but a special Perestroika edition, touting that Camels finally came to Russia in 1990.

b. a card wishing me a pleasant trip. Actually not me; it's an old card.

c. A small butterly statue of no value whatsoever (monetary or aesthetic)

d. a photo of my wife and myself

e. a double deck of cards from Bermuda (souvenir type) in a nice case.

f. a Harvard Guide from 1903

g. A small book, Get Into Your Dance, with Ruby Keeler and my cousin Al Jolson on the cover.

h. a small bust of Tschaikovsky

i. a small photo album with pictures of the flooded Potomac and monuments that I took in 1972, or some such year.

j. a gold medal from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair that was made into a pin.

k. three white and gold butterflies (dead) mounted on and in plastic.

l. a small statue of me, made by the secretary of a client in the 1980s, meant to be a Christmas tree ornament.

m. a small ceramic mask made by one of my daughters (a long time ago)

n. 20 "genuine photographs of Chicago", probably from the 1930s, in a small mailing envelope that takes a 1 1/2 cent stamp. maybe 1 inch by 2 inches

o. a small globe/bank circulated in 1938 by the Golden Rule Foundation, preaching brotherhood on the base.

p. 13 Susan B. Anthony dollar coins

q. a working flashlight, just in case.

r. a picture of a pig, painted on velvet and framed in a handpainted frame, not large, purchased at a craft fair in Pennsylvania.

s. a Star Trek card with a picture of B'Elanna Torres (half human, half Klingen)

t. 20 colored views of Arizona in a mailing card, which also takes a 1 1/2 cent stamp, although this one is 2 inches by 3 inches.

u. a Jewish National Fund collection box, which looks like it has been around for a while.

v. a model truck, one piece, green (peeling) metal, which I had when I was very young and which I think belonged to my cousin Eddie before me.

w. a newer small model car, a 2 seater GT, made in Thailand

x. a silver car, which also was my cousin Eddie's, and was one of my all time favorites.

y. A statue of a clown (copywright, Ron) affixed to a quartz base.

z. a small prayerbook in Hebrew and Yiddish. It was printed by a Mordecai Ziegelbaum, but I cannot tell where. I also cannot tell when, although it has a previous owner's mark with a 1903 date, so it is at least that old.

C. The second bookcase.

a. a coffee mug, grey with an imprint of a brown candleholder (almost a menorah). I once had four of these, but three broke or vanished. This is the remainder of the first coffee mugs I bought when I graduated from law school, at Brown Drugs in Brentwood MO in 1967.

b. a Waterford capitol dome, which I received as a gift for serving as a trade association president.

c. a small ceramic box (maybe a pin holder, but empty), with the Colisseum on it.

d. a mug from the Daniel Boone home in Defiance, MO. It is a very ugly mug, and I have never been to Defiance, MO. (although my great uncle Morris and great aunt Mary lived there many years)

e. a photo of one of my great grandmothers (so they say)

f. a mug from my mother's law school 50th year reunion, Washington University, 1986.

g. a ceramic do-dad that allows you to moisten stamps without licking them that belonged to my father.

h. a nice silver tzedakah box which I think I gave to my wife once.

i. a pair of weird plastic sunglasses, which was a gift from a daughter.

j. a picture of my great grandmother, and great grandfather and family.

k. a mug with an embossed and colored rendering of Washington DC, which I bought in an antique store, maybe in St. Louis

l. a letter holder that says Shalom, Jerusalem city, and which holds various ancestor photos (mostly reproductions), as well as a high holiday ticket to the Consistoire Israelite de Paris for 1972, a bookplate signed by Richard Dreyfus at the St. Louis Jewish festival, a 1951 postcard showing the changing of the guard at Whitehall, London, a postcard showing the Judaism exhibit at the 1967 Montreal World's Fair, a souvenir envelope marking the visit to Cairo of Abdel Aziz El-Saud, King of Saudi Arabia in 1946, and an old post card showing the lake front at a small town in Michigan that bears my family name.

m. a souvenir coin from the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904 of the Majestic Stove Company, a Indian head nickel, and a 1946 penny.

n. another ceramic piece (abstract) made by a daughter.

o. older paper money from the Ukraine, Zambia and Egypt.

p. a post card (new) showing the Fox and Grape Bed & Breakfast, Williamsburg VA (never heard of it: this one gets the random award)

q. two bookmarks or some such thing on very heavy paper/board adversiting Gitanes Balto and Week-end cigarettes. Very nice.

r. a picture of my daughters

s. a plastic pig (very kitschy)

t. a souvenir pen for the S.S. Theodor Herzl with the ship suspended in water in the stock. souvenir of Zim Israel Navigation Company. Must be from 1940s or 1950s.

u. book of matches from le Jardin restaurant in Ottawa.

v. a nice blue glass flowered paperweight

w. an antique magnifying glass on a stand (a present from my wife)

x. another old car, red and orange, made from rubber

y. a new model car (about 2 years old); a NY taxi cab (bought it myself)

z. a button with a picture of Shakespeare looking like Groucho, or vice versa (don't know where this came from or why it is here)

aa. a five inch pile of photographs I have taken

bb. old souvenir fold out post card sets (either with about twenty views that all spin out, or about twenty separate cards in a box, or in a perforated book. All from between 1915 to 1955 (I would guess). In no particular order: Luxembourg, Granada, Glenwood Mission Inn, Arlon, Calcutta, San Sebastian Spain, Chamonix, Rocky Mountain National Park, Charteau Thierry, Saint Nazarre, Bruxelles, Verdun, St. Louis, Napoli, Aix les Bains, Padua, Hollywood, Adirondacks, Harpers Ferry, Toronto, Albany, Miami, Queluz Portugal, Library of Congress, Kansas, U.S. Capitol, Washington DC, Berkshire Hills MA, Great Smoky Mountains, Boston, Reno, Li River China, Phantom Canyon/Royal Gorge Highway, and (last and least) Poughkeepsie. Some of these show World War I destruction.

cc. a group of old postcards, showing such things as Potsdammer Platz in Berlin, the statue of John Harvard, St. Louis Worlds Fair at Night (with electricity no less), Washington DC (a post card with glitter), Wenceslas Square Prague destroyed in WWI, mosques in Tunis, Roman ruins in Algeria, Cuernavaca, 35 old St. Louis cards, Mukden, Woodrow Wilson, Signing of armistace on 11-11-18 (WWI), French victory, Havana, Interlochen Music Camp, Jerusalem, Shanghai, 11 old Palestine, Constantinople, Nova Scotia, Picking Tomatoes, "Frohliche Weihnachten", Astorga, Constantinople Man o War, Washington DC Natural History Museum, Sorrento, White House, Bedouin Girl, WWI Poem, General George Marshall, 8 more Washington, Paris, Lebanon, Santa Fe, Bedouin man, San Francisco, another Interlochen, Lisbon, New York, plus several others.

Going to stop now. Two more bookcases and one more ledge, but this is the bulk, but you are tired (I say, speaking to myself) of all of this right now.