He brought me a video to check out:  ...And now Miguel.  He said, "Have you seen that?"  And I said, no, but the author was a Newbery Award winner, wasn't he?  "You know children's literature?!"  Yes, I suppose I do.

He was an older man, with white curls clustered over his head, a tanned lined face, thin corrugated neck.  His gray eyes fixed me as he talked on.  Somehow we moved from children's literature to Thomas Hart Benton.  It wasn't that big a jump:  apparently he illustrated Mark Twain, and the two native Missourians were both inspired by their home state.  I thought of the Thomas Hart Benton room in the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City., and wondered if the first editions were located there or the public library or some other archive.

It appeared that the gentleman talking with me had known Benton's daughter, Jessie, who lived in a famous commune in the 60s.  He talked on about her and those times and I was reminded of Hilton's Lost Horizon, where people learned the truly important moments in their lives.  This man's important times were in his youth in the east, when he met a painter and the painter's daughter.

I don't think I've had an important time.

But I listened as he spoke of Jessie Benton Lyman and then circled back to Miguel, who is still alive and perhaps could sign the original edition of Krumgold's book that my Ancient Mariner possessed.  And I thought of all the people I've met and art that I've owned.  It's irreplaceable, but what can I do about it?  I'm going back in June to pack up pictures and letters and the immigrant trunk, but I can't take everything back with me, and I have no crystal ball to tell me which of the possessions might mean something to future generations.

They have brought me joy, and that is their purpose.