This Is Me--2024 A to Z Theme

My A to Z Themes in the past have covered a range of topics and for 2024 the theme is a personal retrospective that I call "I Coulda Been" which is in reference to my job and career arc over my lifetime. I'll be looking at all sorts of occupations that I have done or could have done. Maybe you've done some of these too!

Monday, April 23, 2018

Traveling and Touring ( #AtoZChallenge )



        Once when I was a kid someone told me to "collect my wits"--that's when I started my collection of Mad magazines and joke books...






       








Traveling and Touring Things


         Travel mementos can be found throughout our house both in the open and stored away.  Refrigerator magnets, curios, pictures, or travel books are likely to be found in every room of our house.  While doing my garage cleaning I ran across a number of things related to my travels or just related to the subject of travel.

        As I've mentioned here before, I grew up in a show biz family who frequently traveled for our performances.  Back in those days I began collecting matchbooks, soap bars, and other freebies labeled from establishments that offered them.  Those items actually got used up after I entered adulthood, but I still have a respectable postcard collection that I started when I was a young boy. 

        Postcard racks used to be prominently displayed in restaurants, variety stores, and any other places that might be frequented by travelers.  When I was an avid collector and cards might be something like six for a quarter, I would buy several from whatever area we were in at the time.  I'd also pick up post cards from motels where we stayed and other places that offered free cards.  Over several years I accumulated a great many cards.

        The bulk of my postcards are in a box in my closet, but I often will notice postcards in drawers or other boxes.  When I was organizing our garage back in December, I ran across a lot of cards which I kept aside and placed in a box to be further sorted in the upcoming months. 

         The post cards are merely one more example of the travel things I have around the house.  In the garage especially there are a great many maps, travel directories, and tour schedules from my years on the road managing shows.    Most of this has been well organized and fairly neatly boxed--it will be easy to go through with some probably minor culling.  Old hotel directories will likely go as will a few of the maps.  Not all of them--but some of them.

         There were always maps in my life and I became a proficient map reader at a young age.  Map reading became a past time for me sometimes just for fun and other times because I was traveling and needed to see where I was going.  At home I can spend a good bit of time studying maps.  I enjoy studying how highways are routed and interwoven.  I like to think about the little towns where I may likely never go or remember the places I have already been.  When people used to tell me that they got confused and couldn't read a map I was somewhat baffled.  Now this response makes more sense.

         Now most of us probably use GPS for telling us where to go.  Sometimes my wife tells me where to go.   Still I like the visual aid of a good map.  And suddenly an idea popped into my head:   I should draw a map of my house and where the main cache of certain things (postcards for instance) are.   This would be good if I started  developing memory problems and needed a prompt.  It would also be helpful when I die so whoever was left could figure things out more easily.

         Not a bad idea perhaps.   But actually I hate thinking about stuff like that.

       Do you tend to collect a lot of souvenirs from your travels?   When is the last time you sent someone a postcard?   Are you good at reading a map?












27 comments:

  1. Wonderful pics and a most interesting read Lee.

    Yvonne.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yvonne, thanks for visiting. I know you have a lot of stuff from your travels.

      Lee

      Delete
  2. The last postcard I sent was to an A-Zer 2017! She themed her posts on PC's and we did a swap after the challenge. I collected postcards many years back and still do, though they are not as easy to find now in the age of digital images.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nilanjana, I remember when some of the postcard bloggers were doing this. I thought it was really cool. Not that many places even sell the tourist type postcards--not like I used to see many years ago.

      Lee

      Delete
  3. A map to your maps! This is fantastic recursive thinking.

    I think I've only gotten a couple postcards in my lifetime. Someday, when I clean this place out, I'll get back to you and tell you. Because the way things are scattered around here, no map of the house is going to help anyone on that front.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Harry, a lot of postcards I've kept from the mail were ones that my parents received. They used to get quite a few postcards. I get them very very rarely. Maybe I should start sending them to myself. Now there's an idea.

      Lee

      Delete
  4. My sister and I went on a trip with my 82yo Dad last summer. He's an avid map reader and didn't trust Siri or Google maps to get us where we were going. We assured him that maps were old school and went ahead with our Google Maps request. We asked to be taken to Pikes Peak and ended up in a neighborhood park called Pikes Peak Park about 25 miles away from the real thing. You can guess...he had an "I told you so" moment he'll never let us forget...
    Kimberly
    Passing Down the Love #AtoZ

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kimberly, your dad sounds like a road warrior after my own heart. I've relied on GPS often, but still it has sometimes led me in weird places.

      Lee

      Delete
  5. Remember when gas stations gave maps away for free? Those were the days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. John, I sure do remember that. I still have some of those old maps that my dad had accumulated. They were very well detailed maps.

      Lee

      Delete
  6. I still collect magnets, whenever I can find them. But between the magnets and all the things the kids put up, I'm going to need another refrigerator ;-)
    I love maps and globes and atlases. A map of your house and contents is a clever idea!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Diedre, my wife usually buys a magnet or two whenever we take a trip. Globes are so cool. My U.S. road atlas goes with us on every trip and invariably we end up using it at some point.

      Lee

      Delete
  7. I love to collect souvenirs. I have fridge magnets, postcards, some shot glasses. Tshirts, books about the places, etc. I love reading maps too but I'm really bad with directions. I seriously do not know my right from my left.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JoJo, I've collected souvenirs since I was a kid and still have some of those. I don't usually buy souvenirs now, but my wife does.

      Lee

      Delete
  8. Map freak from an early age. When you make that map, be sure to make a second one showing where you put the first one...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CW, in thinking about that house map I'm wondering if I should worry whether some burglar might find it--nah, nothing worth the work here.

      Lee

      Delete
  9. I used to love looking at atlases and road maps of Britain as a kid, planning ways of getting from here to there as day-dreaming virtual journeys long before these days of virtual journeying becoming its' internet thing. I've probably not sent nor received a postcard in almost ten years. They do seem much more expensive nowadays than they used to be, as are postage stamps here and maybe Facebook and mobile text messaging have undermined the practise of sending postcards. My travel souvenirs in recent times have been limited to discarded items i might pick up as irresistible 'found objects' during infrequent small journeying now and then. Or I might take a snapshot instead of collecting more detritus. probably sounds crazy, I know. I think a home contents map/indexing is a very good idea indeed but can't imagine how long it might take in actually making one - although it appears you're making a very good start on that in your A to Z posts here :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Collette, postage has definitely gone way up and internet communication is so much more economical. I probably could put together a pretty comprehensive and decent map in a few hours. Maybe later.

      Lee

      Delete
  10. Love, love, love your first set of photos, Arlee!

    Do you tend to collect a lot of souvenirs from your travels? Not anymore but I used to collect shot glasses.

    When is the last time you sent someone a postcard? During a 2012 visit to Ecuador, I sent one to my mom.

    Are you good at reading a map? Yes, I used to travel for business in the pre-GPS days. I had quite a collection of rental car maps from cities around the US.

    Emily In Ecuador

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Emily, I thought of you when I noticed this plaque just sitting on a stereo in my garage. It seemed to appropriately illustrate this blog topic.

      Lee

      Delete
  11. When we moved and after Mom died, we had a few stacks of postcards. Now I use them as gift tags for presents. I wish I could read maps with some success. I got lost in a Rite Aid store recently because it was laid out differently than our home store.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I love reading maps too! I find them so interesting and, if we have the time, I take the route less travelled because it is far more interesting than a freeway. I keep postcards and buy them but I can’t recall the last time I bought. Postcard except when we were in Europe in 2009 before my mom got ill. I can proudly say, I don’t have gps

    ReplyDelete
  13. I use a lot of city maps in my writing research, to see where streets are, local geography, and how to get from place to place. One of my most treasured possessions is the atlas my late uncle got me in late '86. I know it's outdated in certain ways, but the basic facts haven't changed. It's just that some names and borders are a little different.

    I'd love to have physical maps of cities I write about, so I won't have to look at online maps all the time. High on my list are Budapest, Florence, Paris, NYC, and several Russian cities.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I used to bring home maps and travel books about places I visited, but I'm gradually sending most of that stuff to the recycle bin. I'm just tired of the clutter.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I have photo albums of postcards, I still like to buy them when we go away and a fridge of magnets of different places we have visited

    ReplyDelete
  16. Some of my best memories are of having that coveted passenger seat in the car and reading the map while on a family vacation. I still send people postcards and love receiving them. Hope it never goes out of style.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sue, that was my job when it was just my mother and the kids. I wish more people would start sending postcards. I guess I should.

      Lee

      Delete

Go ahead and say something. Don't be afraid to speak your mind.
I normally try to respond to all comments in the comment section so please remember to check the "Email follow-up comments" box if you want to participate in the comment conversation.

For Battle of the Bands voting the "Anonymous" commenting option has been made available though this version is the least preferred. If voting using "anonymous" please include in your comment your name (first only is okay) and city you are voting from and the reason you chose the artist you did.

If you know me and want to comment but don't want to do it here, then you can send me an email @ jacksonlee51 at aol dot com.

Lee