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Old 01-09-2017, 09:37 PM
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two-bit cowboy two-bit cowboy is offline
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I don't consider myself a Smith & Wesson collector, but I have a few revolvers. Many would argue that any accumulation of similar "objects" is a collection. Okay, fair enough.

I do, however, possess three vast collections. Was there any psychology involved in me gathering these things? I guess that's for somebody with a couch in their office to determine. I won't be the one on the couch.

Airplane photos. The big, Air Force images gained through 28 years of visits to the local Public Affairs offices on the bases where I was assigned. Corporate images from every U.S. fighter plane manufacturer. And Air Show posters, primarily of the Thunderbirds since I was stationed at their home base, Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, Nev., three times (about a third of my career).

Good airplane photographers have a knack for getting a dramatic background in the scene, which always enhances the image. One in my collection is the official AF photo of a C-141 (before the stretch models came out) with tail number 50122. Mount Ranier is the background. That bird took me to Korea in 1978 for my first assignment there (we departed from McChord AFB near Tacoma, Wash.). The crew let me ride in the cockpit the entire way -- 16 hours. My seat wasn't web, and I was toasty warm! One of the benefits of being an air traffic controller back then, I guess.

Scores of German beer glasses (not stolen, but purchased for about DM5 each) and the associated cardboard coasters. In two tours I spent seven years in Deutschland, I love beer, and it seemed every tiny town had its own brewery. Some of those brewery logos are steeped in hundreds of years of tradition, history, and creative artistic ability. The glasses are divided somewhat equally among three styles of beer: Weizen, Pils, and Export, with a few other styles, like Alt and Kölsch, sparsely represented, too.

One of these years I'll figure out how to display, and more fully enjoy, more of the airplane photos, beer glasses, and coasters. For now they're tucked safely in their 20 to 40-year-old sleeves and boxes in the basement.

Psychology? Balderdash!

Bob
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