So, I've been a collector of bottle caps, coins, stamps, model cars, old books, seashells, seaglass, and many other strange items. Over the years, I've met many other collectors, including people with more exotic collections, like hand-made dolls, old model trains, insects, feathers, and art of many types.
That's probably why I so readily embraced the opportunity to have these bottles dug up in my backyard. Now, I collect old bottles. (Actually, I always did, I just didn't have very many.
Now, this set of three dozen tell the story of the people who lived in this house in its early years, the 1880s and 1890s. My grandparents' generation. From the bottles they discarded over a hundred years ago, I can devine something about their age (old), drinking habits (spirits), their smoking preferences ( a pipe), their health problems (constipation, consumption, hangovers), and their sexual life (vaseline.)
In some places, this information would be a little easier to know because property records still exist, but San Francisco's burned in the fire that followed the 1906 earthquake. Here, many things are mysteries. The bottle repositories in backyards are hints. Other old dusty records do exist that might help fill in the gaps, such as old address books, newspaper morgues, etc.
It's sobering to think we are our what we throw away.
But we are.
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