A friend of mine has a little jar that he took outside during hurricane Wilma and filled with “wind.” Now he says he has a piece of a hurricane on his shelf.
The son of another guy I know brought home a weekly scholastic magazine in which the cover story was about the crew and mission of the space shuttleColumbia. The thing is, the magazine was distributed just after the destruction of the shuttle.
Does second hand count?
My Father gave a ride one evening to an elderly woman. She insisted he come in for coffee.
On the mantle was her dead husband’s eye floating in a jar. Removed for some cancerous reason while he was alive, Dad said it’s dead gaze would follow you about the room. He left very, very quickly.
My dad used to have a couple lion’s claws. He joined the Peace Corps after college and lived in Burkina Faso for four years. My brother and I always used to make him tell us about the time he went on a “lion hunt” (actually a “lion-in-a-leg-trap kill”). Although he didn’t contribute to the kill, he was allowed to take two of the claws as souvenirs. He had the non-sharp ends capped with gold and strung them on gold chains as necklaces. He gave one to his girlfriend, and kept the other for a long time but eventually gave it to his mom. I remember seeing it as a kid; it was huge and very sharp and scary.
I had one that was Jesus or Mary depending on how you tilted it. Then it broke in half, so now I have the top half of Jesus or Mary, depending on how you tilt it, which is even funnier.
I have also seen a wine carafe made out of a cow’s hoof and lower leg. It had a nail driven into the heel part so it would stand upright.
I didn’t buy it, but I should have, if only because mere words cannot impart exactly how grotesque it was and I would love to be able to show a picture.
My mom has the dessicated remainder of my circumsized foreskin in a box in the garage.
I received from my grandfather an officer’s saber he says he picked up as a trophy while he was participating in the postwar occupation of Japan. I asked if he got it off a dead guy or what; he didn’t answer me.
I have a snow-globe featuring a depiction of the Crucifixion that I got at Palisades Amusement Park in the 1960s. Now, a Nativity snow-globe I can understand, but the swirling snowflakes impart a bit too much jolliness to the Crucifixion scene for most people’s taste.
I carry around a little pocket tape measure - a business souvenir embossed with the logo of an Artificial Limb Company. Perfect for measuring severed digits and what-have-you. I have no idea where I got it from. The company, obviously. But how it ended up in my pocket…