Wednesday, August 25, 2010

I'm a boring person....

....well, at least I think so. I read a lot of blogs and am fascinated by the goings-on of people. I wish I could write about my life like that. I go to work, I come home tired, and I go to bed. Okay, maybe I'm not that bad, but close. I'd love to write about my job, but I work in social services and pretty much everything I do is covered by the HIPPA law and is confidential. Besides, I'd be terribly afraid some of the clients might discover my blog and know I am writing about them. I couldn't do that to them.

I like letting everyone know about my writing, but I mostly only write on the weekends and there's really not much to tell about my writing. I know everyone gets tired of hearing about how much, or little, editing I get finished.

I thought about hobbies, but I really don't have any. But, then I remembered a hobby I used to do. Before postage became to too high, I used to collect autographs. It was really a fun hobby and the postmaster at my post office loved it when I had to go to the window to get a large envelope containing an autographed photo. She insisted I open it right then so she could see who I had gotten that day.

I did get a new autograph the other day. I was listening to the radio a few weeks ago and Karl Rove, from the George W. Bush administration, was telling how to get an autographed bookplate for his recent book. I sent a SASE and received the autograph this week. In addition to the bookplate, he also included a signed postcard.

I probably have well over 100 autographs in my collection. Most I got through the mail, but many were in person. The collection includes actors, singers, politicians, journalists, athletes, military personnel, and astronauts. If you notice, I left off authors. That's mainly because when I collected, I wasn't writing and didn't think about authors. I have since collected a handful of author autographs. Most of them are friends that I got in person, or they sent me one of their bookmarks. (Marian, I don't think I have your autograph yet.)

I'm always asked what my favorite autograph is. I have several favorites. I always wrote a letter requesting the autograph and made it a personal letter. A few times, along with the signed photo I received a personal letter from them. Those are definitely special. One time I wrote to an astronaut for an autograph and after about six months I gave up on getting anything from him. Then one day, I got a large envelope in the mail postmarked from Houston. It contained a signed photo and a letter from him explaining that my letter to him had gotten mixed in with some other stuff on his desk and he had just found it. As a way of saying sorry, he also included about six authentic NASA shuttle mission patches. How cool was that?

But, my absolute favorite autograph is from then Senator John Glenn of Ohio. When I wrote to Senator Glenn, I explained how much I liked and supported the space program. To my surprise, I did not get the signed senatorial portrait photo that he normally sent out. He sent me a photo of him in his space suit after a mission and even signed it personally to me.

I had hoped to scan a few of the autographs from my collection, but my scanner isn't working right now. If I ever get it fixed, I'll have to post a few.

Do any of you have any autographs that you cherish?

Carol

4 comments:

  1. Carol, I know you, and you are SO NOT boring! lol!

    I used to collect autographs, too, but I've lost most of them in various moves and natural disasters. I think I do still have Robert Bloch's (yes, the Psycho author). Er...the author of Psycho. He was a very nice person, actually.

    I focused on actors, back in my collecting days. I got Cesar Romero (the Latin dreamboat or the TV Batman's Joker, depending on your age) in person, just about everybody on Dark Shadows, Dr. McCoy from the original Star Trek, Zulu (Kono in the original Hawaii 5-0) and so many nobody ever heard of but I loved. I was the queen of the bit-players and B-string character actors.

    On the top of the scale, I recently scored a prize autograph of a wonderful author and fascinating person--Carol Preflatish!

    Thanks for this fun post!

    And you can have my autograph any time. :)

    Marian

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  2. I c ame across an autograph to my aunt from Birch Baye and kept it:) I also have the John Handcocks from Bob Gregory (Channel 13 weatherman), the former Mayor of Lafayette (my dad used to work for him), and of course, various authors I've met the past several years! But my absolute favorite are the first letters my children wrote when they were learning to write their names:)

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  3. Oh Marian, you've got Bones McCoy's autograph. How cool. I have Brent Spiner's (Data) from TNG. Thanks for the compliment, BTW. :-)

    Molly, I have Evan's Bayh's autograph on a photo that I took of him before he held any office. I probably have letters from my daughter, too. Everything is of her's like that is in a draw of our file cabinet.

    Thank you both for your comments.
    Carol

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  4. I don't collect autographs but I have a lot of pictures of me w/someone sort of famous. I get to see these celebrities when I pop down to LA and when I go to events like the Pebble Beach golf tournaments or chef dinners which I used to have a blast at but can't afford anymore. My cell phone has a pic of me and my hero Laird Hamilton, big wave surfer and baby boomer hunk at a book signing in Malibu. And when I press further, I realize in one of my favorite poems, Hands, I write:

    ...think of the autograph collector/who never leaves his apartment/
    yet reaches passionately for the afternoon mail...

    So you see, Carol, we are connected as writers...Mary Kennedy Eastham

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