Leonard Gray / L’Observateur / July 29, 2000

All right….I confess. I’m a pack rat, and I’m not apologizing for it.Maybe it’s a guy-thing, or maybe that’s just a convenient excuse for my behavior, but I collect…stuff. You never know when I’ll need something.My wife is, well, pretty tolerant about my habits. She just insists that itnot take over the entire house. Therefore, most of my…stuff…is confinedto one room.

That one room is now filled, floor to ceiling, with practically no walking space at all. Anytime my wife wants something out of there, usually agood book to read, I brave the hazards and get it for her. I tell her not toeven try to find anything in there alone.

I mean, so what if I can lay hands on all my Boy Scout merit badges and my Shiloh medal and my Memphis Sequicentennial medal in three minutes flat? I plan to put them all in a kind of shadow-box display – one day.

Now, I agree that the five floor-to-ceiling bookcases and three floor-to- ceiling utility shelf units are kind of full. In fact, they’re stuffed beyondcapacity and I worry sometimes about weight limitations.

However, I have one of the biggest collections of paperback books on “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” and a collection of books on the CIA which I used in college to write a term paper for my American Foreign Policy class in one night. (Got a “B,” by the way. Might’ve gotten an “A” if I had achance to rewrite before turning it in.)My interest in crime reporting also led me to making a huge collection of books on serial murderers, including a massive collection on Charles Manson (including a book written by convicted murderer Susan Atkins, which contains a letter from her to me). In addition, my two trips toLondon helped my research on the infamous Jack the Ripper case, on which I have one of the biggest book collections in the state.

Three bookshelves are crammed with my collection of books on or about the “Sherlock Holmes” stories. Another shelf contains my set of AbbieHoffman books, including his notorious “Steal This Book.” (Find one ofTHOSE, if you can!) Then, there’s the comic book collection. I read comics as a child,naturally, and stopped when I got to high school. However, in my third yearof college, I rediscovered comics and started collecting again. Now, thethousands of comics in my collection could easily stock a store.

The result of all this, though, is a room where reaching the far corner takes several stretching steps around knee-high obstacles.

I did manage a few weeks ago to smuggle my Tolkien books into the living room, under the guise of classic literature, and joining her museum art prints in the room’s decor. We do have an image to maintain.But that cuts out displaying my “Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers,” my “Batman” and and my Howard Stern posters.

Sometimes, a guy gets no respect.

LEONARD GRAY is a reporter for L’Observateur.

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