Barack Obama, and the Rush For Election Souvenirs

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eBay may be the ultimate collector's resource, but it kills some of the fun. Sitting in your pj's doing keyword searches for Pez dispensers is not the same as pulling off the road to explore a junk store and finding a prize. Collecting involves more than just buying a full set of something. It is the quest for a family reunion: the posters for all 15 Houdini movies from 1919, all 177 pieces of a Minton dinner set. There's the possibility of failure and the hope for immortality. That helps explain why we have 17,500 museums in America alone, ranging from the Getty and the Whitney to Boston's Museum of Dirt.

My own collection is personal, the table of contents of my life. I have baby teeth and ticket stubs, my first license, my last loan payment, the rehearsal bouquet made from the ribbons from my bridal shower, and a shoebox full of key chains and charms and snow globes. Souvenir means "to remember"; I wonder why we tend to associate the word with the tacky and tasteless, rather than with the most precious collectible of all: the memory of the moments that make us who we are.