Richards writes of wooden boats. I sail (Cape Cod dingys on the Charles River), and have lusted after wooden boats ever snce I sailed a leaky double-ender in the chop off of Gloucester, MA. I devour every issue of Wodden Boat magazine, and I do think that the same aesthetic informs both the wooden boat revival and classic bikes. Someday, a small Herreschoff design and I will be one...
In digesting the collect/hoard conversation, I have shifted my perspective. As I road through morning rush hour yesterday, this thought came to mind: "My body will heal, my bike won't."
As cash-flow allows, I am going to begin gathering parts, and I hope a frame or two, because I like the stuff, and because every time I try to imagine myself on some twenty-one-speed-cassette-hubbed-28-spoke-pedal- systemed monster, a break out in a sweat.
I now suspect that hoarding is not determined by raw volume of stuff, but perhaps by mindset.This stuff is precious, and I suspect that if someone on this list was in dire straights for some component, probably everyone to a person would help make the match. Hoarding evokes an image of a Fort Knox-like basement and a raw hunger for acqusition (Steve S.--sound like someone we know in another hobby?)Collecting--regardless of volume collected--is for the love of it, and implies a communal component.
Or maybe this is merely an exercise in self- justification ;-)
Jackie, who gets misty thinking about the "junk box" at
Marblehead Cycle...
> on the heels of recent threads regarding collecting,
> and on 'to ride or not to ride it...', there is an interesting
> article in today's paper, (read: The New York Times),
> about the renaissance of wooden boat building in general
> and about the newly-launched Rebecca, in particular.
> certainly, there is relevance between this subject and
> the CR list subject matter.
>
> the fourth paragraph reads:
> Boats like Rebecca remind us of ''how much we're
> losing in this homogenized, marketing-ethic, throwaway
> culture,'' said David McCollough, the author and historian,
> who plies the Vineyard Sound in his own 21-foot Gannon
> & Benjamin sloop, Rosalie. ''I would like to own the boat
> even if I never went out on it, just to look at it, the way one
> would love to own a painting or a great piece of furniture.''
>
> e-RICHIE
> http://www.richardsachs.com