Author: Libby Holloway

Have you ever wanted to travel through time? When I was a kid I had a great imagination fired by the books I read. Our picnic table was a ship that could brave any storm, unless I was playing Swiss Family Robinson and needed to be shipwrecked.

People of this generation are always curious about why Victorians were so fond of wearing jewelry made of human hair. I admit it could seem a little macabre to wear hair that came from someone else’s head, especially when that someone is dead. Since this isn’t a Halloween story, let me tell you more about the history of hair jewelry and perhaps you’ll understand.

Back-to-school is just beginning and I’ve already made several purchases at Staples and the campus bookstore for my college Freshman. My husband and I are gearing up mentally and fiscally for the “big shop” when our son purchases his text books for the first semester. We’re ready; this is our second kid and we are old hands at this.

Is a collection of Water Festival memorabilia still a “collection” in Santee, San Diego, or San Salvadore? I recently wrote an article where I credited Ebay with starting a collecting feeding frenzy in the site’s early days. To quote myself, “Collectors seem to pay good money for just about everything deemed collectible [on the site].” I still think there is a collectors club for just about anything.

Spring had finally come to Beaufort, South Carolina. After a couple of false starts, with warm days teasing us between the cool, rainy days of a lingering winter, we’d had some sunny days and gentle breezes. The azaleas and their colorful companions had started to bloom. About the time my favorite season had just begun, I boarded an airplane bound for Chicago, where I was spending a week.

The other day I was listening to some ladies speaking about a young local woman who is getting married this summer. The groom-to-be isn’t from Beaufort but has family in the area. “Who’re his people?” I heard one lady ask. It’s been a while since I’ve heard that term, but it is something we often wonder. These ladies weren’t trying to be snooty; they were just curious. Knowing the history of a person, or an object, helps us define them.

Today I took the afternoon off to spend lying on the beach with my friend. She and I are both busy...

  Everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days….” If you’ve had a pre-teen around the house the last few years you’ve heard Miley Cyrus blurting out that line from the radio or TV. It’s one of those songs that gets stuck in your head whether you want it to or not. Maybe because it rings true to so many of us.

Marbles are a wonderful invention. They are a cheap but beautiful item with many uses. Early marbles were made of stone or clay but eventually of glass. Glass marbles are tiny works of art. Collector and glass dealer Cheryl Burnett certainly thinks so. She began collecting marbles when she bought a collection at auction. The marbles were not on her shopping list that day, but as soon as she saw them she knew they were something special. “I bought them before I knew anything about marbles. I just liked them,” she says.

 Christmas is a time for nostalgia and remembrances like no other time of the year. I mentioned to several people that I needed a topic for this article and everyone told me stories about items that have wonderful memories tied to them.