The Quartz Burro of PackRatism

“Begin at the beginning,", the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop”
-Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland)

Once upon a time, when I was around four years old, my parents took me to a rock shop. They had observed my interest in rocks (because I assume every small child plays with pretty shiny things they find on the ground) and naturally, wanted to encourage such interests in me that might create a future geologist or something science-y. Boy, were they wrong.

 

I can't remember where we were going that day, perhaps to my grandparents' general store a couple of towns away... but there appeared on the road ahead, a creaky old shack that had ROCKS painted in huge blue letters across the front of its' faded pink facade. We rolled up in the station wagon (this IS the 70's, by the way) and picked our way across the cluttered yard through metal sculptures, large rocks and dirty cats, into the interior of the rock shop. 

 

It was actually a series of rail cars and sheds, cobbled together and strung with cobwebs and extension cords, and smelled like ages of cigarette smoke. The afternoon sun burned yellow shafts through the dirty windows, alighting on glittering rocks lining the rickety shelves. It couldn't have been more magic to a young girl like me.

The proprietor was an old, large bellied, bearded man in denim overalls, with round glasses perched on the end of his nose. He was sitting at a bench, cleaning something under a large magnifying glass, when we came in. The cowbell attached to the old screen door announced our arrival with a squeak and clank.  He looked up from his work, over his glasses, and said "Mornin' folks," and I saw that he was chewing on an actual corncob pipe. 

My young mind attached to this as being evidence of his Santa-ness. So I asked him, "Are you Santa?"

"Me? No. I'm Harvey," he said with a smile, somehow talking around his pipe. He got up from his bench, dislodging a dusty cat in the process. It dashed out the screen door as my father trailed in behind us. Clank, clank.

"But you look like Santa." My mother used this as a teaching moment to explain that even though people may look a certain way, it may not be true what you think about them. Of course my father thought all of this was terribly funny, and he joked how it was a good thing Harvey didn't look like the easter bunny instead. 

So, his non-Santa-ness being firmly established now (even though I still had my doubts) he proceeded to rummage around loudly in various drawers, while drawling on to my mother about how he's got all these 'specimens' as he called them, from ALL OVER THE WORLD! THIS one's from Mongolia, and THIS one's from Brazil, and THIS one's from Assbackistan, and many other places I had never heard of. To me the world was still pretty small, so he pointed out on a map where the rocks were from, while holding them up in a sunbeam, turning them to glisten and sparkle.

One of them, to my amazement, made rainbows all over the room! Such wonder in rocks. He was sure doing a good job of selling me on collecting, because of course I had a whole box of pretty things I wanted within minutes. I'm sure he played this game with every single kid who walks through those squeaky screen doors, too.

"No, honey, you can't have them all. Just pick one this time." My mother, the voice of reason. I whined of course, because I wanted them ALL, but settled on a small geode with dense purple crystals inside - to me it looked like a stone bowl filled with rock candy. 

As he was wrapping my geode with newspaper, he asked if I knew what a burro was. "Is that when animals make holes in the ground?" I answered. 

 

He laughed, "Ha! Well, yes, but there's a different kind of burro than that," and handed me a wad of paper with something small, but heavy inside.

"We really can't afford another..." my Mother started to say, but Harvey put up his hands to stop her. 

"No, no, this is a gift - it's just a small thing. It's made of quartz." As I unwrapped the paper, the milky smooth creature appeared.

 

 

"This is a 'burro'? It looks like a dog. With bunny ears." I replied. Not tactfully.

"Well, it's not a perfect likeness. But it's close. A burro is like a little donkey. This comes from Peru," and he once again, showed me on the world map where we were in relation to this new place. "They use burros down there for all kinds of things, but mostly as pack animals. They carry stuff because they don't have many cars there." 

 

"Have you been there?" I asked.

"Yes, many times. And I even rode a burro."

 

I couldn't imagine why someone would go somewhere 'many times' unless they had a reason.

"Are you sure you're not Santa?"

 

At this point, my parents were growing impatient to leave, and they thanked Harvey for all the time spent teaching me about other places. My mother joked that I'd probably either become a geologist or a packrat from this. As we let the screen door bang and clank shut behind us, he called out, "Come back again!" and we did, many more times. But those are other stories...

Well, I did not become a geologist, but I did end up with a huge box of rocks along the way. I've come to believe that the little pack animal Harvey gave me that day started my collecting habit. He knew exactly what he was doing. It is for that reason that I must pass on this beast of burden (aka the "QBP") to another. It has been thirty-five years in my keeping. 

It is time to stop carrying all this extra stuff around. 

 

So who wants to be the next caretaker of The Quartz Burro of PackRatism? Maybe it will help you carry your extra stuff for a while...