Battle of the Boxes- The Hoarder vs the Collector

Yet one more reason to despise Donald Trump. He is giving pack rats like me a bad name.

The former hoarder-in-chief’s attachment to paper is a very familiar one to me.

Trump can’t seem to part with his and neither can I.

I too have left a long paper trail.

Though my stockpile veers less towards state secrets and more towards vintage greeting cards, how-to-booklets, third-grade book reports, and scribbled notes on old envelopes from 1974, the urge to hold onto paper is a strong one.

The only classified documents in my collection are several old Junior High school diaries; records of my teenage angst marked for-my-eyes-only.

(L)Contents of a “beautiful mind” at Mar-A-Lago (R) Even In my Mad world things are very organized

Unlike the cacophony of cartons oddly stacked in bathrooms and tossed randomly around Mar-A  Lago, my hundreds of boxes are well-marked, orderly, and organized by topic on floor-to-ceiling shelves in my climate-controlled basement. My collection is less Collier Brothers and more Smithsonian archives.

Trump’s love of paper has led to an indictment. My love of paper has led to art exhibits and a writing career. It should come as no surprise to those familiar with my work that I am an avid collector of popular culture. Anyone who has seen my collage work and read my essays understand my love of paper and the history it provides.

Public Domain

Sally Edelstein sorting magazines in her boxes.

Of course, the big difference between Trump’s collection and mine is everything I have is in the public domain and that is exactly the point.

I love Ephemera.

Simply put, ephemera are the collectible pieces of history that document the daily lives of people. The minutia and stuff of everyday life; paper and objects briefly used, deemed useless then discarded.

My house is a home for orphaned paper. It is a loving, well-cared-for repository for discarded paper, and those items produced to be short-lived. In fact, the more transitory the paper is, the more it is cherished.

I love feeling the history and information that surviving paper holds that often can’t be found anywhere else. They can reveal things we might not otherwise ever learn.

Think of all the paper bits and pieces you use every day. They weren’t meant to be collected or saved but they serve as a fascinating glimpse into history

Along with the thousands of magazines and newspapers spanning eight decades, my home is filled with vintage cards, leaflets, booklets, postcards, catalogs, ticket stubs, receipts, used checks, matchbooks, tickets, notes, letters theatre programs, pamphlets, workbooks, and hand-outs, to name just a few.

Produced to meet the needs of the day, these items reflect the moods and mores of past times in ways that more formal records cannot. They are a valuable primary source of information that offers a unique window into a culture’s past, documenting our daily life.

The only Nuclear Secrets in my house are How to Survive an Atomic Attack

Like Trump, I have boxes and boxes filled with nuclear-related material but none that jeopardize nuclear security. Relics of the cold war such as home fallout shelter manuals, and atomic survival guides,  that have long reached their expiration date remind us of a not-too-distant past of nuclear jitters.

Dis-Order

Trump’s attachment to the contents of the boxes has now left him in serious legal peril, but it appears to be consistent with a long pattern of behavior.

Stowing papers and odds and ends in cartons that he likes to keep close is something others have been aware of.  According to a NY Times report, his aides have called it the “beautiful mind paper boxes” material. It turns out he has always been a hoarder, surrounding himself with clutter his whole life. Nothing changed being president. Top secret documents were given the same treatment as yellowing vanity clips from Page Six of the NY Post. Golf shirts, shoes, and pants comingle with Iranian War plans.

This arbitrary chaotic method of saving is one I know.

I come from a family of die-hard savers, not organizers.

When I closed down my cluttered childhood home a few years ago after my father’s death, it was a challenge but not a revelation. My savings gene is a direct link to my mother and grandmother. My mother Betty loved paper as much as I do. It is because of her that I still have every childhood drawing and elementary school paper I ever wrote.

Our home became the final resting place of my long-deceased extended family’s cherished belongings and papers that no one else wanted but which my mother hadn’t the heart to discard.  For 40 or more years dusty cardboard boxes lay in our cellar untouched, unsealed, from the time when they first landed there with each family member’s death. It became my job to open and sort through them while paying homage to long-ago family members. As though they had been in hospice these boxes came here to bide their time in a holding pattern. I sorted through every scrap of paper, giving it its import, and only after I held and read each piece did I make the final call to discard or save.

Disordered

The items in my parent’s basement had no order, a cacophony of consumerism.

Decades melded together so that a box of saved 1972 Jell-O box tops once earmarked to redeem an Oster Blender, nestled next to a collection of Limoges hand-painted boxes, that rested beneath a 1930s business ledger from my great grandfather’s multi-million dollar shoe company. Unopened 1947 Bank of New York City Statements from my mother’s life as a single woman on West End Avenue, co-mingled with telegrams for my Bat Mitzvah. Suffice it to say, all items were saved.

The mundane and the revelatory, the precious and valuable stood toe to toe with kitsch, all co-mingling without rhyme or reason, known only perhaps to my mother who placed these objects together.

Perhaps Trump’s chaos of collecting is known only to him. As is his motive of what he may or may not have done with these documents.

So yes, I come from a family of savers though I like to think of us as saviors. Of honoring the past.

Trumps hoarding is ego driven and self-serving. It not only dishonors our laws but our military and the safety of our country.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.