I’ve been going through my crap and getting rid of as much as possible. I kept a couple of things from my mother’s house so the strangest thing I have are two jars of rainwater. From 1977.
Iris found these in one of my mother’s cabinets she was cleaning out way in the back. I’m working away in anothe room and I get this call, Eddie come here. So we look at these mason jars of water. Written on them is the date, one is from 1977, the other is either 76 or 78 I can’t remember now. We puzzled about them for awhile wondering why anyone would keep them. Now however, I’ve got them and I don’t know what to do with them. After talking to my father I now know where they come from, down to a few feet actually since they were collected by the neighbor.
Now I don’t know what to do with them. There’s quite a bit in each one, and they have a date. I know I’m going to keep one of them, but I’m thinking on eBaying the other just to see what I can get for it. I mean what else do you do with 30 year old rain water? I think the one I’ll pass down, maybe it’ll keep for a few hundred years.
I own lots of odd stuff. I don’t know what the oddest is:
A Carbide Lamp that a friend dredged out of a lake
A set of Brick Molds made out of wood that I found in the clay pits behind our house, where Jacob Riis (among others) once dug out clay and made bricks. I also have one brick with the matching imprint that I found.
Various weird pieces of scientific apparatus that I made over the years for schooll and various jobs, including a tiny plastic injection molder
High Speed movies and strobe photos of karate strikes
A vial of Whale Oil, bottled back when such things were legal
Either my lavendar suede work shoes ($7 new at the thrift store) or the 18" x 36" piece of wood with a blow up of the October 11, 1982 issue of Newsweek magazine, with a cover story of “Wild ‘CATS’: London’s Smash Musical Pounces on Broadway.” ($20 at the same thrift store).
I have—
[ul]
[li]Fossils of clams[/li][li]Fossils of coral[/li][li]Quartz crystals[/li][li]A cow magnet, or I used to…[/li][li]Pitchblend, that is, Uranium ore.[/li][li] A Lodestone[/li][li]A glowing Weeble.[/li][li]An articulated plastic figure of a Harryhausin Cyclops[/li][li]An articulated plastic figure of a Harryhausin Griffon[/li][li]A stuffed armadillo[/li][li]A plastic figure of a Were-Cheetah[/li][li]Two Toy Batmobiles, of different eras[/li][/ul]
I have a glass vial full of “cape cod” sand. i also have a rock from Marin Coiunty, CA (I took it from the North end of the Golden gate-did I steal this?). I also have piece of brick from Fanuel Hall (Boston).
I also have a piece of volcanic rock from iceland.
A high school friend of mine had a gyroscope that supposedly came from a B-17 bombsight. It certainly came from something military. It would spin just about forever on the slightest push. Until he dropped it on the floor.
The most unusual thing I own is probably the Caroling Christmas Bells my mother gave me. A bunch of tuned bells on a frame, controlled by a chip. There are also chips for classical music and some other songs. It cracks my family up.
Is it one of the steel 280-mL cans with the straight sides? Don’t get rid of it–they’re now collectors’ items.
I have a copy of the indescribable Codex Seraphinianus. I bought the Abbeville Press edition while working my first summer job, in 1982. (“I have money! Let’s get something! Hmmm… this looks weird and interesting. I’ll get it!” :: pause :: “WTF did I just do?” )
It cost $70 plus tax, a hefty sum in those days. Imagine my surprise a couple of years ago when I found that coipes were going for a thousand dollars on eBay.
I don’t have anything very strange, but the quirkiest thing I have is the metal plates that were inked and used to print the newspaper photos of my parents and friends at one of their high school dances. My grandpa worked at the paper and took the society pages photos so he must have swiped the plates.
This is not strange really, just the most unique thing I’ve got - I have a grey wolf pelt and eagle plume that I was given when I received my spirit name. I used to have it mounted on the wall, but the cat started showing too much interest in it, so it’s in a bag in the closet now (maybe the cat is the strangest thing I’ve got…)
a human skull
an ancient Roman coin
several photographs of the inside of my colon
the gun a fellow I knew used to commit suicide
bits and pieces of equipment from a fall-out shelter
A World War I bayonette sword thingy. It’s not strange if you collect such things, but we know nothing about it or how my father acquired it. I only recently identified it as World War I after viewing a kazillion photos of bayonette sword thingies.
More more specifically, a baseball autographed by The Iron Sheik, Hawk & Animal, George Steele, Kurt Henning, and a couple of other late 80’s/early 90’s WWF stars.
The burned-out vacuum tube that originally powered a 1965 Pontiac Bonneville’s automatic headlight dimmer (light sensor thingie).
Chain made from beer and soda can pull-tabs, from back in the days when pull tabs came loose from the cans.
Old-fashioned paper library card for the New York Public Library, stamped “FILM” to give me permission to check old reel-thru-projector films out of the library. Metal embossed plate embedded in the paper card.
