Rant #1,472: I Don't Know What To Do With Myself

Does anyone out there have a hobby?

Do you collect stamps or comic books?

How about collecting Barbie dolls or maybe G.I. Joe?

Maybe records, or CDs, or maybe you just collect MP3s at this stage of the game?

I have had hobbies my entire life, and let me tell you, they have kept me out of trouble.

Starting at probably about three years old, around the time I started to read--I was self taught, although I am pretty sure my mother helped me out, too--I collected comic books.

I mean, I really collected them. My first comic led to more, and heck, by the time I was in college, I had thousands of comics.

I preferred DC over Marvel, and I did have some issues that became collectors' items.

During my formative years, those comic books were my life, as was my baseball card collection.

Alas, I pretty much sold them both away--my baseball cards when I was in high school and my comics a few years ago.

I also was a voracious player of Strat-O-Matic Baseball, a table-top baseball game using cards and dice that is probably the most addictive and fun game ever created.

I started playing this when I was about 10 or 11, got my friends hooked on it too, and during my darkest days--when my family and I first moved to Long Island--this game kept me going.

If not for Strat-O-Matic, I honestly don't know where I would have been then, or even now. It kept me away from things that would have not done me any good.

I gave the game up when I was in college, but I picked the game up again when my son was born. I played it for about seven years and then gave it up again.

Then we have my current, past and future hobby, which is record collecting.

I cannot tell you the pleasure I get out of this. To me, it is the most relaxing thing to do in the world.

My collection began in the mid 1960s, and quite honestly, it was both my and my sister's collection. We shared it, my mother bought our records--I had about the hippest mom in the world during this period of time, and still do, for that matter--and my sister was basically the custodian of the collection.

This means that I would visit it from time to time, but she really watched over it.

When I was in college, I started to pick up on it again, and I have never stopped.

I have thousands of records--LPs, 45s and EPs. I have CDs, tapes, basically, they made it and I have it.

I often talk about my record collection here, because it is so pleasurable to me.

As an adult, I have basically co-opted my daughter's room--at 27, she isn't using it anymore--and all of my records are in that room, all the vinyl records that I have, plus many of the CDs, too.

I still collect, and won't ever stop.

Right now, my focus is on picture sleeve 45s from the 1960s, and I can't wait to go to the local record store again to see what they have on sale.

I never spend that much money when I go, which is good, but I am pretty sure my collection is worth a bundle.

That will be my legacy to my kids when I am gone.

But while I am alive, I know that there is nothing better than to own, hold and listen to a vinyl recording.

Well, those are my hobbies. They help me pass the time when things are slow, and they have always kept me off the streets.

What are your hobbies, what were they as a kid, and what are they now?

I am sure they are as pleasurable to you as mine are and have been to me.

One can't work 24 hours a day, you know ...