SORTING HISTORY: WHAT MATTERS vs WHAT MATTERS MORE

Sorting history is the difference between hoarders and historians.

If there were no difference, every garage full of crap would be a museum. And I say garage full of crap with all due respect, since I’ve got one piling up. In the end, that stuff tells a part of our story.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Sorting history is the solution. Why? I’ll tell you why. It starts with building.

When you build anything you enter into the specific realms of time and money. You’ll know you’re done when you run out of one or the other.

Sorting history is the same. Do it right and you find something you never want to run short of.

From Old Crap To Historical Artifact

Without sounding too braggy, I sorted history professionally in a history museum. I was the only real Oregonian on staff, with summer job experience from Hallmark’s Fishery in Charleston, and the GP mill in Coos Bay.

The job of museum collection manager does just that, manages the museum collection. And no, it wasn’t a glorified go-fer job. Going and getting donations was an exciting part of ‘doing history’ from the ground up.

Other museum jobs carry loftier titles, which usually means they don’t get dirty. But it all starts with the equivalent of that garage. It starts with stuff, then moves to preserving the stuff, storing the stuff.

What comes to mind when you picture museum people? Men in suits, white shirts with cufflinks and lush ties, shoes shined to a Marine Corps buff? Ladies in mid-calf skirts, pale stockings and low pumps below a fitted art textile top?

You’re not wrong.

Those are the money people, the leaders, the fund raisers who remind their friends to bring their wallet to the next gathering they host. In an odd twist, the two men at the top of my museum were both Marines, one WWII, the other Korea.

They were physically big guys with a European fashion sense. English Gentleman looked like the role model if I know my dandies, and it flowed downstream from there. Big events brought out everyone’s inner cat walk.

When an event called for an all hands participation, the entire museum staff proved up to the task of setting up, moving things, and taking down. That robustness of the rally started at the top.

They knew how to dig.

“Sorting History Is Dirty When It’s Done Right.”

Dr. Mae West is a much quoted source on the topic.

History doesn’t show up on the proverbial silver platter. No one wants that. We want the dirt, the juice, the emotions. I felt all of it and more when I held the Magna Carta in my museum hands.

Not every feels that stuff, but they can learn how.

Here’s a secret: you get to the history dirt by finding a common thread through seemingly unassociated objects. Hence, the garages full of generational ‘history’, the closets jammed with the uniforms of a daily life, are revealing.

It all tells a story. Look at your stuff, the things you haven’t used or thought of in years, and imagine the story it tells about you.

I’ve got my father in law’s sport coats and suits hanging in my closet, like he might stop by for some tailoring. Anyone judging me would guess I was a snappy dresser. My dad’s Marine Corps blues hangs in there, too, along with my starched Army bootcamp green fatigue top. What would that story be? And I’ve got room for more.

There’s always room for one more in the Closet of Fame.

And that, my friends, introduces the big sorting history question, the collector’s question. (But not the hoarder’s question.)

Which One Is Best?

Things we hold in our hands speak a certain language. At first it’s question after question after question and it won’t shut up.

“Can you guess what I am? What I did? What am I made of? Where I was made? Who used me? Who has owned me?”

The things we decide to keep use a different nomenclature. The Chenhall and a detailed provenance won’t change what we love. Once we understand that, sorting history is easier.

The objects surrounding us in the material world share their love with their presence in our lives, and it never runs short. It’s a lesson to learn.

What if you don’t feel the love?