PECULIAR HOBBIES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20928, 6 January 1938, Page 9

PECULIAR HOBBIES

COLLECTING BUTTONS AND BITS OF STRING There is a man who has no hobbies of his own, so he could be interested in those of other people. His name is Dave Elman, and he thought there might be a moderately good radio programme in inviting people to come before the microphone and tell about themselves and their hobbies, said a writer in the Christian Science Monitor recently. He thought he might possibly be able to dig up enough people who were willing to do this to make one programme. If you ask him anything about what happened, as a result of his first call, he will look at you with a .slightly dazed expression and murmur, “You wouldn’t believe it. You simply wouldn’t.” It seems that about everybody in the world has at least one hobby. If you ask Mr Elman which has been the most peculiar hobby that has ever come under his notice, he will look at you sadly like a maharajah surrounded by 10 tons of priceless jewels, invited to tell which is the most beautiful. For Mr Elman subscribes to the academic view that all hobbies are peculiar, else they would not be hobbies. And that dealing therefore as he does in a very snowstorm of peculiarities, he could not possibly pick out one which exceeded all the rest.

Of course there have been some astonishing ones. There was the girl who saved string. She calls to mind the wonderful character of Frank Fay’s revue days, his aunt who saved string. His aunt, Frank used to say, was fixed for string. As Frank presented her on the stage she seemed a wild and improbable character, but now comes Miss Janette Saval, who is not at all wild or improbable, to lobby for string saving as a hobby, and to explain herself and her hobby in general. Then along came a man who raises chickens. You may sniff and say, “Pooh! How ordinary is that!" There is a blarney mixed in with this hobby lobby programme somewhere. But the thing that makes raising these partlcuchickens a hobby is that the man in question raises them on top of a New York hotel. Not because he distrusts the hotel in its statements about his morning eggs. Not because he wishes to compete in the egg market in New York. Not even because he has nothing else to do in his spare time. No, he simply has a hobby of raising chickens on hotel rooftops. He thinks penthouse chicken coops ought to be dotted around all over the city. Mrs Frank E. Vanderhoof iet Mr Elman know that she would be happy to come in and talk on the air about her hobby, which is collectin- old restaurant menus. The thing that gave hr • the idea was the fact that her mother collected such menus before her. The oldest one she has was in use in the North Western Hotel In Liverpool, England, one day in 1838. It may be that Mrs Gertrude Patterson, of Malaga, N.J.. has heard at c„. time or another of Ben Whitehead, of Newark, New Jersey; at any rate, Mrs Patterson’s hobby is collecting old-fashioned buttons. Mr Whitebrad's business for upwards of 40 ycc.ro has been the manufacture of souvenir buttons for conventions, patriotic use, what not, and it is said ,ie has a collection of such buttons -.li.ch the Newark Museum, as one ol be truly progressive museums in the orld, might well acquire. Mr Whitehead is a summer neighbour of Rudy Vallee over on Lake Kezar in Maine, and he always has a few of his souvenir buttons around, to give you a sample of the thousands he has at home.