The Banana Peel Collector

I think I've figured out the banana. Like everything else of nature, it wasn't made for us but its own sake. This concept was an eyeopener for me, like with flowers being to make more flowers and tomatoes more tomatoes. We're just interrupting the process, much out of necessity in certain respects, to eat them, for our own natural process.

Anyway, here's the banana: The little nubby we always pinch off is its seed, and the banana part is nourishment for the seed. The stringy bits are like conduits for the proper utilization of its nourishment. The flimsy peel is a dissolving husk.

As I'm standing there contemplating the whole wonder of it I'm thinking how we've trivialized it. Like in the phrase "going bananas" for insanity. Bananas aren't insane. Truly, to go bananas ought to be an expression for having it together.

Way back when, of course, as a youngster growing up as a kid, then through my 20s, 30s, and 40s, I was in one place, real immaturity when it came to the fruit with the yellow hue. It wasn't till my 50s that a mature understanding started kicking in. I remember blowing someone's mind when I told them about flowers. The reason flowers don't last a week is they're in a hurry to make more flowers! And the same thing with bananas, going "bad" in a few days; they're just trying to go to seed. But what do we do, make banana bread out of them...

I wouldn't mind recapturing the days of my innocence when I thought the banana was just a fun piece of food. Which I guess they still are. I still like them but I do feel a little sorry for the seed now when I chuck it. I take all this somewhat seriously.

But I don't take it as seriously as this guy I know. He's something like a hoarder, but he's scientific about it, cataloging, indexing, etc. Speaking of going bananas, I guess he's a candidate for that, literally. Because he went whole hog for bananas, even to the point of saving the peels. You believe this, right? I can see how it would be hard to believe. But some people -- you know, when they're kids -- you give them a chemistry set and one thing leads to another. They might breed a million mice, make stink bombs, or devote their full attention to something like bananas. Seriously.

And he may eventually have the last laugh. Glen, that's his name. Someday the world might thank Glen, because, honestly, I doubt if very many people are doing this. But someday actual scientists, white coats and all, might need to get their hands on his collection, whether to chart what went wrong in the past, or to see what they might do for the future. We've all heard of bringing back dinosaurs; what if we had to bring back the banana?

I remember a few years ago I read something on the WWW about there being some trouble with bananas. It projected a loss of crops, with the correlate drop in availability of bananas like we have now. I think of that when I'm having a banana split at DQ, that someday it might be 50 bucks for one. I haven't kept up on the latest news of whether bananas are still a threatened species, but since nothing ever improves in the world, they probably are.

That's when Glen might really come in handy. Because he has peels going back to the '60s, to the early days of the Velvet Underground. Various kinds of plastic bags, drying apparatus, shelves, cabinets, plugged test tubes of scrapings and juice, etc. And all of it cataloged, marked, the whole bit. If you visit him, his strictest rule is when you're in the garage you don't breathe.

You ever heard of this place in Norway (or somewhere), the seed bank? Where they have the purest collection of seeds of plants, the original stuff, not hybrids? If anyone from there's reading this, and you have an opening, get hold of me. Glen has the world's original bananas, and I believe he'd travel.

My Ten Year Baby Aspirin Cotton Collection

It's been 10 years, 10 long years, and I've been looking forward to sharing it with you, but I had to wait for the exact anniversary ... today!
 
I remember it like it was yesterday, even though it has been 10 long years, how my doctor told me I was a candidate for an immediate heart attack. He said something like this, "You get yourself on an aspirin regimen, sir, or you'll be dead in no time!" Words to that effect.

Of course I clutched my heart all the way to the store, where I made a scene about a lady having 12 items in the "10 Items or Less" line, because I was in such a terrific hurry. "You've got a dying man here!" I hissed, also picking up breath mints and a Twix.

Somehow, though, I survived long enough to get the first pill in me. Then, as it turned out, I did not die, thanks to this quick intervention, even though I had waited till the very nick of time. But I didn't know. I wouldn't take aspirin before because I heard every aspirin makes your stomach bleed a teaspoon of blood. Presumably, though, a baby one would only be a drop or two.

As days went on, then years, I more or less forgot about the death sentence, because the baby aspirin regimen was a complete success. Just think of the time speeding by -- as I said above, 10 years seemed like yesterday -- I got healthier and healthier in my heart, so much so that I'm easily able, say, just as an example, to shovel snow for probably 10 minutes straight without an ambulance on site.

Early on, sometime in the first couple years, I decided to keep the little wad of cotton from the aspirin bottles. The bottles themselves I threw away. Once when I had a couple of buttons fall off shirts, I thought I'd keep them in the bottles, but I didn't lose near enough buttons to make it pay. The cotton, though, I thought might come in handy for something. Like muttonchops at Halloween, a fake mustache if I needed a disguise, or to help the Scouts if they still did cotton drives.

I've been real faithful on taking the aspirin. I take one each night before going to bed. And honestly, I haven't overdosed even one time. A few times I haven't remembered taking one, then I try to remember and usually do.

There's been a little bit of friction in the whole process in this regard. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about taking them. The biggest thing, since they are baby aspirin, I'm hoping I haven't deprived any children of their ability to get the meds they need. Then there's lesser concerns, such as whether crafters might be deprived of cotton if there happened to be a shortage, and whether the slaves who pick the darned stuff are being treated right.

For the most part, though, in fact entirely, I've been able to put those concerns out of my mind and simply take the pills. The way I look at it, What's one piece of cotton every month or so? Especially when I was literally pronounced dead by my doctor. He had the coroner in the hall, the whole bit, but I got myself on the pill, and I haven't quit.

The mortician's going to have to pry the bottle out of my cold dead fingers. And if anyone wants my cotton collection, whether as a memento of my distinguished life or for some more practical reason, they'll have to get in line ... and they'll probably have to fight for it.

My Valuable 1941 Nickel

Somehow -- I don't want to give away too much about how I got it -- I came across a valuable old coin, a 1941 Jefferson nickel. I had change in my pocket, I emptied it out, and there it was, a genuine 1941 old coin, just like that. I didn't do a single thing, knowingly or unknowingly, to end up with it!

Before I got it I was feeling perfectly normal. After discovering it I pulled down the shades and started googling it. According to a site called "Cointrackers," there were hundreds of millions of these made. But since it's from 1941, there aren't a lot of them left in circulation.

As to the coin's value, the Cointrackers site said it ranges from 35 cents to $7.00, which is a damned lot for a nickel. $7.00! Meaning, I wasn't going to put it in a parking meter. And actually, except for this blog post, I wasn't even flashing it around willy-nilly. Only to certain people who could be trusted.

I took it around to some of the coin shops of my town. I moved all my ordinary change over to my left pocket and kept the '41 nickel alone in my right pocket. I went to Todd's Used Coins first. Todd was out for lunch, but the girl at the counter, taking a quick look at the nickel, immediately paged him, and he came right over. He looked at it, verifying for me that it was indeed a 1941 nickel, and that the visage on its face was a picture of Thomas Jefferson. He looked it up in a book, then wrote a number on a slip of paper and passed it to me. I looked and he had made me an offer of 25 cents.

I thanked Todd for his time but went on. Another place, right next door, is called the Universal Coin Emporium, or U.C.E. I went in and the owner -- the oldest guy in the shop -- met me. I asked if I could share my find with him, and he was amenable to it. He was very nice, in fact. He asked if it would be better to have a small black cloth for a background, which he provided. The nickel looked great on the cloth.

He said, "Ahhh, yes," in a very satisfied way, and checked it out carefully, front and back. He also was able to verify its province in time and place, that it was an American coin, to be precise a nickel, from 1941, with Jefferson's visage on one side. He pulled down a coin guide off the shelf and referred to it, announcing that the "tails" side was a building having to do with Jefferson called "Monticello." It looks like it has a dome on it. Very curious!

This guy -- I didn't catch his name and he didn't say -- offered me 75 cents for it, American money. I thought, you know, that's definitely a step in the right direction, but far from 7 bucks. On the other hand, he said, being a coin shop, he's buying things for resale, so he needs to make a profit. Anyway, he said, he would probably price it at $5.00, because there's some wear, and it might take him a while to sell it. When I turned down his offer, he said he might go $1.25, but not a penny more.

I wrapped it up in the black cloth and left, wanting to try one more place. A place called Dick's Coins, "If It's Money, We Want It!" emblazoned on his window, door, and even a bumper sticker on the car out front. Dick was very busy and really couldn't be bothered. But still, after I waited for an hour, making myself very conspicuous, through a lot of heavy sighing and tapping my watch, he made time for me. He came over and was very nice, "Let me see the damned thing..." He looked at it, and acted like they were a dime a dozen, to coin a phrase, and tossed it back at me.

I went slinking back to the guy at the Emporium, proudly, and told him I'd take the $1.25. And he was happy to pay it. I asked for the payment in coins, hoping to score another collectible, but they all turned out to be regular 2010-12 quarters. Nothing valuable. But enough for a couple cans of soda, pretty good for a nickel!

Strongheart Dog Food Through History

You haven't seen much of me lately, and for that I apologize. But I've been away doing some very extensive research on one of the topics that of course I love, dog food labels. And now it's extended even to the history of dog food.

As I sketched it out over a year ago, I've been collecting dog food labels for quite a while, and have found the kind of personal satisfaction from that that really nothing else in life has brought. I hate to be too dramatic, but it might be what I was born for.

Here are the posts:
1) Strongheart Beef
2) Strongheart Liver
3) Strongheart Chicken
4) Strongheart B, L & B
5) Husky Beef
6) Dog Food Labels on eBay

At that time I listed only a few items from my collection and let it go at that, just gave you a taste. And I'm afraid that's how it's going to stay. Because one of my personal quirks is a terrible paranoia, and it really frightens me that someone is going to break in and steal my collection. So there's no reason to tempt anyone, especially with the combination to the safe right on my bulletin board.

Anyway, in the last few weeks, I've been away doing this research. I've been going through an old archive of dog food ads. There's a guy I met through a friend of a friend. Really, he's about as paranoid as me, but with some TLC I was able to soften him up. We went through several nervous weeks of feeling one another out, but finally I gained enough trust to see his archives. He allowed me to photocopy a few of his microfilms, which are below. It's some good stuff!

The first one shows Strongheart himself from 1922, the flesh and blood inspiration for the dog food. Strongheart was a movie dog. What I wouldn't give to own his skeleton!

Then we get into the actual dog food. We're going back to 1936 for this next graphic, advertising Strongheart for dogs and cats. I didn't know they marketed it for cats. But apparently they liked it, too, since it said they'd smile sweetly.

We'll leave the decade of the '30s behind (for now), and move into the '40s. Here was a good deal in 1941, before our entry into the war, 4 cans for 19 cents! I don't know if that's why Japan attacked us, because they resented our low prices on Strongheart.

Also from the '40s, 1947, this is a big ad, which I've reduced. You can't read it, but obviously they started adding Exerol to Strongheart. Exerol is described as "an exclusive enrichment process that adds all the vitamins and minerals that are recommended by government and private veterinarians..." Whatever it is, the ad explains, "Exerol itself is absolutely odorless and tasteless -- in no way affects Strongheart's luscious goodness."

From 1948, we have this little cutie. My own dog, Underbrush, looks sort of like him:

Moving into the '50s, we have this price for Strongheart:

That's not a bad price. 3 cans for 27 cents? I could feed the whole neighborhood if it was that cheap now!

Then 1954 is represented with this ad:

I like what the dog has to say, "I'M POSITIVE!", reflecting the general optimism we had in the Eisenhower years. 1954 was a big year. Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System and my brother was born.

At this point we enter the tumultuous '60s, a time barely fit for man or beast. But of course everyone still had to eat, and that included dogs.

We had go-go joints in the '60s, the Whiskey A-Go-Go, etc., and they even carried it through to dog food ads, saying, "Give your dog go-go-go with Strongheart..." The lettering for PICK-UP also represents the strong psychedelic style typical in 1962, and it even seems to anticipate "Tune in, turn on, drop out" and "Sit ins," a quick phrase like "Pick up."

I'll bring it back down with this rather plain advertisement from 1967. It's one of my best memories of the Summer of Love, the great bargains we were getting on dog food.

And last, I have one example of Strongheart advertising from the '70s, 1972 in particular:

You can see it's stylistically very 1972, and I love the 10 cent font!

Here's a big surprise to finish off this post. We're going back to 1936 for a rare picture of the actual Strongheart's grandson, Silver King:

At that time in 1936, Silver King was on his way to Utah, apparently to direct traffic as a demonstration of his talents. Silver King had met most of the nation's governors, and at this time in 1936, was set also to meet and shake hands with Utah's governor, Henry H. Blood. Silver King had some interesting dental work. Three years before, he'd had some trouble with his teeth. So by 1936 he had two gold-crowned fangs!

Have I Not Served You Well?

I've been doing some downsizing. I got rid of a bunch of books and several bookcases a few weeks ago, and, starting yesterday, I've been taking my CDs from the cases, putting them in CD envelopes, and throwing away the cases.

This is radical stuff to me, being a collector for all these years. And when something radical happens, I hear a still small voice, "Have I not served you well? Has it really come to this, my old friend?" Which is true. Most of my possessions serve me well, except sometimes I'm serving them. Such as when I have to carry them a boxful at a time from one place to another, or I start thinking I have too many of something.

And on this stuff, CDs and books, records and things, I really figured I'd have the same (expanding) collection all my life, at least till it was time to go to a nursing home. Since obviously I'm never going to have a grandson like Grandma to take care of my stuff.

But then -- a mental bug gets the best of me, like in this case -- and I start downsizing. I'm getting a jump on spring cleaning! In this case, I started with the classical stuff, since I hardly ever listen to it. I took the CDs out of the cases, and in the case of something that doesn't have the track listing in the booklet, I had to break the case and cut a piece out of the back paper.

Having completed the classical, I got to thinking it seemed OK. I could live with it. So I started in with my more popular stuff. And it's been no problem, except it's time consuming. Still, it's going to save all kinds of space, which I noticed as the cases started piling up in a junk box. I've taken three or four boxes out to the recycling container.

And I used to take really good care of the cases, back when CDs were new, even replacing broken ones a time or two. And now they're garbage! A few were unopened, so I opened them just by scraping a knife across the front and taking off the plastic! Unheard of.

For a few artists, I'm not going to take the plunge, a few of my favorites in the collection. I'm just not ready for that quite yet.

Anyway, the still small voice. I hear this when I do something radical with my stuff. "Have I not served you well?" "Yes, you served me well in the years I was doing it that way. But the time for your service has regrettably come to an end. Had I known you were actually going to take it so hard, I would've given you at least two weeks notice. For whatever difference it would've made.

I'm also the guy who looks wistfully at a motel room for the last time. So clearly there's something wrong with me.

Dog Food Labels On eBay

These are some of the dog food labels for sale on eBay today. They might not be there tomorrow, because I might be snapping up the Buy It Now ones, and on the auction ones putting such a high bid that no one can touch me.

I love all these. The top one, "Sport," that's one cool looking dog. But note, he also has a tongue as red as a cherry, a lot like the Huffy Beef label I featured yesterday.

As of this morning, the Sport label is for sale at $14.95, of course a real steal. Too bad Christmas is so far off. Grandma's always wanting to know what I want. And we've already had my birthday. Maybe I'll get it for Easter.

The "Gingham Dog" one is very darling too. I wouldn't mind having my room wallpapered with those. I used to have some fishing wallpaper and I'd sit and stare at it for hours. At some point it all got torn down and/or covered over. I've often thought I'd give anything to see that wallpaper again.

The dealer who has the "Gingham" for sale has two Buy It Now lots of 4 for $4.99, and one lot of 4 at auction with a minimum bid of 99 cents. The minimum is low, but I'll probably need to put at least $12.99 to actually beat out the next guy.

I just love the Frend label! Look at the cute array of dogs peeking over the fence, the yellow field that makes up the space for Frend's information. Now that would make a great wallpaper, if you could afford it. Or, in this case, since I keep my dog food labels in collectors bags with the backing and everything, then hidden away in file cabinets, a couple of those would look great filed away. The Frend label is a steal at $19.95. I might contact the dealer and see if he can hold it for me until Christmas. They'll usually work with you if you check in every month or so to tell them you haven't forgotten.

Checking out the Rivet's label on the bottom, that looks like the Strongheart dog! Maybe he did some modeling outside the Strongheart company. Whether it's him or not, he's looking good. There's several lots of Rivet's labels like this on eBay this morning. But I'm torn as to which one to buy. One dealer has one Rivet's label at $9.95. And the other has 50 of them for $10.00. So it's a tough call. In these days, with the economy being what it is, that nickel might come in handy for something else.

Speaking of the economy, my advice for investors, and for the small guy as well, is, if you want true security, put your money in dog food labels. Get them while they're cheap, because they can only go up in value. I hear people sometimes say that gold is the best investment. Don't believe them! Gold is like $1,000 an ounce! At that rate a bottle of pop would cost you $10,000! That's way too high.

Dog food labels are the best investment for one very obvious reason: Because dogs will always have to eat!

Husky Beef Flavor (Dog Food Labels 5 of 5)

For the last in our series of collectible dog food labels from the early '90s, which is just a sample of my much bigger collection, we're going to feature the Husky Beef Flavor variety. It's obviously quite a bit different from the Strongheart labels we've been looking at all week, while still being in the same family, with Strongheart also being the producer of Husky.

It's been a while since I've fed any of my dogs Husky, and I haven't seen it around for quite a while. So I don't remember what it looked like. What I do seem to recall was that Husky was a little cheaper than regular Strongheart, so, who knows, maybe it was made with the meat of elderly cattle. Where their firmness had given way to drooping. And perhaps it was a little grayer looking, I don't recall.

I really like how red the tongue is on the dog! Four inches up and he could've been Rudolph. And Huskies hang out at the North Pole, so Santa could've used one of them. That's quite a dog too. The little dip between the eyes makes the white part of his face into a heart, how cute. And he has those big ears, his hearing was probably very keen. He was on the lookout for a downed cow, something to eat.

I'll try to describe the color scheme on the label, in case you have a hard time recognizing it yourself. The dominant color is red, with the big Husky logo in a yellow oval-ish background. Or could I say a rectangle with rounded ends? Or shaped like an elongated pill capsule.

As always, I will describe again the flavor, then check the ingredients to see if that ingredient is indeed present. The flavor, as already stated, is Beef. Now to the ingredients (not pictured), glancing through, I see, here it is, "Beef By-Products." But, hey, what about this? It also says "Poultry." Obviously meaning that elderly cow meat needs to be supplemented by poultry, because all alone elderly cows are no longer spring chickens.

Note: Just checking my collection, I see I have two of these Husky labels. I would be willing to trade it for any Milk-Bone box put out between 1915 and 1926.

Strongheart B, L & B Flavor (Dog Food Labels 4 of 5)

Now we've got a beautiful label! I've always liked this one, even though I'm not personally that crazy about liver.

Maybe I like it because of the beautiful brown color. It really makes the big eared dog stand out nicely. It gives it a very healthy look. And since a lot of the meat we like is brown when it's cooked, maybe that's what gives it a real good feeling.

Would I like to have beef, liver, and bacon mixed together? No, not really. But seriously, leave the liver out and it wouldn't be so bad with beef and bacon. I've had bacon cheeseburgers before and they're real good. Also double bacon cheeseburgers, which is just about the same thing.

It'd be tough to picture it, if you went to the burger joint and they put a big slab of liver on top of a bacon cheeseburger or double bacon cheeseburger. It sounds nasty. And what it might look like, it'd have to be worse. Or equally bad, the look and the taste.

But when it comes to dog food, dogs don't care. I used to do quite a bit of rabbit hunting, and, it seems gross now, but the dogs would eat the intestines as they fell to the ground. They might be steaming in the snow but they'd fight over them. I can only imagine if I threw in a big piece of liver, to them it'd be like a cherry on the top.

So let's think about this particular can of food. Even though it sounds disgusting to us, to dogs this has to be a terrific flavor. Down it goes, they're happy, just don't breathe on me ... please.

As for the label, it's one of the really pretty ones, like I said, the color, the presentation, the associations with meat, the fact that it promises a real variety, the different meats. Everything about it is good, except the liver.

Looking at the ingredients (not pictured), I see it contains beef by-products, liver, and bacon. What do you suppose the proportions would be? Is there a slice of bacon in there ground up? I don't know.

Whatever may be the ingredients, it's a handsome label, one I like very very much! It's just too bad about the liver...

Tomorrow: Husky Beef.

Strongheart Chicken Flavor (Dog Food Labels 3 of 5)

It's always fun to go through my collection of dog food labels like I've been doing this week, and it's a lot more fun when I'm able to share them with others who are interested. The week is going so quickly!

This week I'm just looking at five of them, four of my Strongheart labels, and then I'll cap off the series with a nice Husky (also a Strongheart brand).

Today I've got the Chicken flavor, like the others an early '90s label. I got this particular label at a farm supply store around 1991-1992. There was a short period back then that I was between dogs. Fritz had died and we were still auditioning a few collies. But still I wanted to work on some of the gaps in my collection, and the Strongheart Chicken flavor being a very common one, I picked it up. No big deal. But I remember it clearly because I didn't want the food in the can to go to waste. So I opened it right outside the store and scooped the food onto a McDonald's bag and sat it around the corner of the store. I figured a dog would happen along sooner or later who wouldn't mind a chicken dinner. It was win-win. He'd have his meal for that day and I'd have a quick label.

Like I said, this is a very common label. It's so common, of course, that when you look through the magazine ads you always see it as part of a starter collection mostly geared toward kids. Just as a come-on, they'll always have a rarer label prominently in front, but then, almost invariably, you'll see some bright orange peeking out toward the back. That would be our label!

Collecting dog food labels, like anything else, unfortunately has its snobby side. Because it's very easy to get jaded and a little too proud of the rarer gems, like a Ken-L-Ration Beef #1 or a '60s Lollipups box. I hate to see that because these people are forgetting that they started out fresh at one time too, they also once were newbies. And I'll bet they started off with the lowly Strongheart Chicken or got one very soon after! I'm sorry if that rubs anyone the wrong way, but no one likes a snob, that's just the way it is.

Maybe it doesn't have much value. OK, we get it. But if everyone threw them away, you know what would happen? They'd suddenly be rare and valuable! So there you go. Let's just be content with what we have, don't judge others, and realize that this label too is a good one. We'd all be missing something if we didn't have it.

Let's look at it. I don't know if the orange scanned all that well. But the featured color is pure orange. The basic design is well known. We've got the big eared dog in the middle, who in real life must've died ages ago but lives on in our (strong) hearts. The blue ribbon stands out starkly against the orange. We see the other elements. Checking the ingredients (not pictured), we're looking for Chicken ... and, yes, I do see it, second right after water ... "Chicken."

Not to put too fine a point on it, I hope, there's really nothing about this label to be ashamed of. If I didn't have a dozen of them already, I guarantee you I'd be looking for one. Again, let me just call everyone to be content, and realize that we all started at some point. Like I said above, I didn't rush out to get one of these, but then one day I was at the store and decided, "Why not? No one's looking. Just get it already." To me that's intelligent ... Live and let live.

Tomorrow: Something a little more exciting, the Strongheart Beef, Liver & Bacon flavor.

Strongheart Liver Flavor (Dog Food Labels 2 of 5)

You must've seen this one coming today, after I mentioned it yesterday, saying the Liver flavor "has its distinctives." That was surely a gimme!

And of course you would've been right, since there it is, one of the boldest, most eye-catching labels I know of in the history of dog food marketing. It's the bright red that sets this one apart.

Liver is a meat that is known for its redness, like other red meat, but it's always a deeper, darker red. It has a very blood red look to it. Liver takes its name from the organ of the body which it is, the liver. I could look it up and find out for sure, but I think it is responsible for filtering bile out of your system, or filtering something, maybe blood. That would explain the blood red color. It'd be interesting to examine the liver of a new born calf, to see if they start out a different color, like white, then become red after working a while.

Well, be all that as it may, liver is edible. I can handle it in smaller portions. I love a few chicken livers, fried up, although the chicken producers have taken to selling chickens without the livers in recent years. But when it comes to cow liver, I'm not a big fan. One, it's way too much to have a piece of liver covering and hanging over the edges of your plate. And, two, in my opinion, the taste isn't good enough to be the centerpiece of a whole meal.

But that doesn't mean dogs wouldn't like it. And that's what we're here for. I don't collect dog food labels because I myself eat the stuff; I don't! So I need to keep my comments on the quality of the meat and the desirability of the meat to a minimum, and just comment on the label itself.

No collection is complete without one of these, the Strongheart Liver with the distinctive red presentation. That said, please don't be discouraged if you have a hard time finding one. They are rare and getting rarer all the time, because most people over the years simply threw them away. Plus, liver, being a meat that many of us don't like that much, there's a real bias against it -- we actually do make decisions about the dog food we buy based on what would appeal to us -- and so it generally sells less than, say, your Beef or Chicken flavors.

All that said, the collector knows that part of the value of an item is determined by its rarity, and so this is a label that we all seek even though we might not personally like a big sloppy plate of cow guts ourselves for a meal. Even with a side of steamed onions, which frankly isn't that much of an improvement.

OK, I'm looking at the label. And I like what I see. The Strongheart dog with the enormous ears in the middle. The blue ribbon standing out prominently against the red. The list of ingredients (not pictured), verifying that, yes indeed, this particular can of food does include "Liver."

This particular label is from the early '90s and is a very nice piece to have. My own copy has some frayed edges, since whoever bought it originally didn't take the time to get it off the can neatly. Still, the piece's rarity in the marketplace means this one retains its higher value in spite of this (very common) flaw.

Tomorrow: Strongheart Chicken flavor.

Strongheart Beef Flavor (Dog Food Labels 1 of 5)

I've got a real treat for you -- for five days only, with one a day, some classic dog food labels.

Collecting dog food labels is admittedly a rare hobby. But if you know anyone who does it, they'll tell you it's actually quite rewarding. One, it preserves the history of the labeling of dog food. And two, it's economical. You can still get some real steals, even on eBay.

I wanted to bring out a few of my pieces here, a quick series of five labels only, both to display them and to say a little about each one, what makes it such a nice piece and so forth.

I've always thought the Strongheart labels were among the most beautiful, so this week I'm going to feature four different ones, the Beef flavor you see pictured, then four other varieties. The last in the series will be a beautiful Husky label, which, as you may recall, has a very bold red background and a Husky dog on it with a tongue redder than a strawberry! The Husky label, also being made by Strongheart, complements the others while providing variety.

Anyway, let's look at the Strongheart Beef label today. I've always considered Beef the basic flavor. Liver has its distinctives, and Beef, Liver & Bacon is a specialty flavor, but Beef is very basic. But being basic, Strongheart didn't give it a plain label. On the contrary, it's very nice, showing two things, how basic the flavor is and how valuable it is to Strongheart's lineup. We see the "Blue Ribbon Recipe" ribbon on each flavor. But the Beef is the one with the blue background, matching the ribbon perfectly. To me, that's the same as saying its place in the lineup is first, first among peers.

Of course we see the dog in the center that is part of the Strongheart logo, then that strong, rich blue background, the flavor announced in yellow capital letters, and the other elements necessary for labeling canned dog food. How do we know there's beef in the can? Because we can glance over at the list of ingredients and see it explicitly says "Beef by-products."

It's quite a nice piece!

Just a little collector's inside information. The UPC code number on this flavor was 77200 10106.

Tomorrow: Strongheart Liver flavor.

People Who Collect Sand

I saw this statement at Wikipedia, the topic being "sand":

People who collect sand as a hobby are known as arenophiles or psammophiles.

That's an interesting, if obscure hobby. I'm getting older everyday and I'd never heard of it.

I went there to look up "sand" because it suddenly occurred to me that I didn't know why we have sand. Think about it. We've got these countless little tiny rocks and no one ever wonders why. So I'm wondering, are they just rocks whose growth was stunted somehow? Maybe a full grown rock needs to attract to itself many smaller rocks to be all it can be. Which doesn't sound likely. And yet there are all these tiny rocks that never amount to much.

Sand is one of those things that is so omnipresent that we overlook it, at least I do. You overlook it until it annoys you, then it's hard to get rid of it. I can be throwing sand on some ice, and next thing you know I've got some in my coat pocket, my boots, my socks, stuck under my fingernails, everywhere. I get sand in my bed somehow -- and it only takes a few little pieces -- and I can't get to sleep, feeling it down by my feet.

You can pick up a handful of sand and look at it. You can look at an individual piece. Then you close your hand and you'll never see that piece again. It's everywhere, yet it's constantly overlooked.

I walked in some sand today that someone had scattered on the ice. It immediately helps of course. Ice without sand is slick as snot. But with some sand on it, you get the traction, because, I guess, the molecules of the sand and ice are in opposition. Sand digs in and nullifies the slick molecules of ice. It gives a welcome buffer zone to your boots, taking the place that the ice would normally be rubbing against.

We used to play in the sand -- and hope that a cat hadn't been there before.

Now I learn there are people who collect sand. My guess, they collect it for its mineral and geological story, not simply because they like tiny rocks. But there could be some who have other interests.

I know sand is a fun thing to mess with, if it's clean. Like the sand on a nice beach. To pick it up and let it run through your hands is a nice feeling.