Collecting Collectibles

While away many people collect these representing their vacation spot. Some collect these, others collect holiday-related treasures. We'd collected these, though just a few, during our earliest years of traveling on our family vacations. I think we did this purely out of suggestion, & not complete interest.

Stamps seemed to be our biggest thing to collect, though that wasn't as much of having a collection as pasting random lineups of those stamps we happened to receive (off the envelopes relatives sent birthday cards to us in, for example) into a binder. Collecting these happened, though it was a reward system where we were to receive a packet of cards upon earning them.

I found myself in a "phase" somewhere in high school. Our local Sunday newspaper had redesigned & revamped their paper-specific weekly TV guide. I found myself retrieving them from the pile of ads, coupons, & random remaining newspaper sections at some point during the week for, what became, my very growing collection. Sometimes the weekly TV guide would end up in the heaping stack of other paper recyclables before I made the move to retrieve it for my collection stack. I'd then take the time to sort through everything until I located it, & all was well with the world [read: my little world] again 😊.

Ever the adolescent, & because he found it completely ridiculous that I'd taken to this (& probably that Mom & Dad let me), my brother made it difficult to claim a few issues. Once, the next door neighbors heard our spat so well that the dad at that house simply brought over their copy after my brother left me alone for a few minutes. The neighbor didn't question or comment, he simply knocked on the front door &, handing it to me, asked if I'd like it. (Yes, I took it. 😑) And at least one issue ended up in my stack in complete shambles, for much the same reasoning, at the hands of my brother, though it was the best I could do.

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So, we grew up living across the street from the school bus garage manager. eeeehhhh, Let me back up. Actually, we grew up living a block, maybe more depending on how you consider the streets of our neighborhood, from the bus garage itself.

One of the first lessons we kids were taught whenever we began attending school & would be concerned about the end of the day & getting on the right bus to get back to the house, was that if we weren't sure, or got misplaced, not to panic. To instead just take that bus & tell the driver just to take us to the garage. Call Mom from there & she'd come get us. Telling this to a child of less than ten years was a lot.

I remember a horror story or two, though never of actually needing to call Mom to get me from the bus garage. Those problems I had were when I was young enough I relied on seeing my brother in the bus line to know I'd gotten in the correct one, though there were [older] student aides to cover this concern as well. On the day or two of those early school years when he'd end up staying sick back at the house, is when I'd be on my own. The aides did well despite a curfluffle or two I'd caused as a result of my worry. This may have been the time it was when Mom explained how we could take any bus & still get ahold of her at the house. 😕 Mindboggling. That is all I thought about it back then.

As the years stretched onward & we participated in school events, especially extracurricular afternoon activities (mainly sports), we'd not be on the afternoon school bus, though we'd often be on Saturday morning school buses that we'd board at the school & head away from the school aboard. These were the times we'd participate in the weekly Saturday morning sports invitational. For these we'd need to use a longer [read: bigger] than average school bus. Typically we were easily accommodated. Our family had nothing to do with these arrangements, though we were aware, in a back-of-the-kitchen sort of way that, our neighbor, being the school bus garage manager, had a direct impact in implementing exactly which bus it was that our team rode away from school aboard. 

Once, when we had a scheduled invitational our bus wasn't quite as large & long as it often would be. The team would have to re-strategize how we'd sit in the seats, & therefore, who that normally didn't sit together, with someone else, on this trip instead would.

Knowing that we had another such trip just another week or so away, & after mentioning to Mom about the situation, along with her encouragement, I headed across the street to this neighbor, rang his doorbell, & asked about school bus our team would get for our upcoming event. He obviously knew I was on the team, & already had our schedule, along with all of the other teams, & other activities for the entire district, which all ran under his management. I was a teenager & an extremely shy one at that. Our neighbor knew this & encouraged me saying he'd see what he could do in assisting our team.

We didn't get the best bus, though that was because those weren't available. Our team would've had a small bus, a typical-sized one, had I not stopped on over. Though there was one bus with just a few more rows of seating which he instead assigned to our team's trip. I remember all of this well because I felt like a million bucks after I made my simple inquiry that really helped out our team.

It was for reasons like these that Mom also considered how the bus garage manager's wife collected magnets. The times we'd been invited to attend gatherings & such at their house we'd noticed the treasure that decorated their kitchen frig. It wasn't sloppy or gaudy, or too much, yet there were plenty of magnets adorning the available space. Mom helped me out & we found this. It was just the right "little something", which was a "little something" just right for the both of them. Stopping over & gifting this to them we learned how my questioning request had enabled our team that alternative bus.

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