How to Hobby: My Life in Magnets

Pop singers put happy memories in a lot of comforting places.

Glen Campbell chose “by the rivers” (Glen Campbell - Gentle On My Mind Lyrics | AZLyrics.com), while Barbara Streisand preferred the “corners of my mind.” (Barbra Streisand – The Way We Were Lyrics | Genius Lyrics)

For me, however, my fondest memories have been much closer – on the refrigerator door in our kitchen. That is where I displayed my collection of over 275 souvenir magnets, as a record of a lifetime of business and leisure travel.

You see, I am cheap. When it comes to travel souvenirs, I would rather buy a $5.00 magnet than a pricey plate that will collect dust in our basement, or T-shirt I will rarely wear.

Even better, magnets are easier to display. Every trip to or through the kitchen becomes a travelogue, especially for visitors to our home.

When I was younger, I collected patches as Scout camp souvenirs. I even had a red patch jacket, which may have inspired my magnet collection. As I outgrew the jacket, magnets became an easier alternative.

In particular, I prefer souvenirs with a unique connection to a place I have visited. For example, I got a “hand/hand/foot/foot” magnet on a trip to the Four Corners area, where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet. I will always remember when our pre-teen daughter stood in four states, simultaneously, with one appendage in each state.  (She shyly did it only after no one else was in the area to watch). 

Similarly, a “Take a Hike” magnet was the perfect reminder of two visits to Shenandoah National Park, once before children, and once with our son. Whether up or down the mountains bordering Skyline Drive, hiking was almost all we did (other than enjoy blackberries, in many forms).

A horseshoe crab magnet commemorates our annual beach trips to Ocean City, NJ, when our son was young. 

A magnet of big horn sheep evokes a highlight of one of our trips to Rocky Mountain National Park. We had looked for them, unsuccessfully, for a week, at all the best spots recommended by the guide books. Yet on our drive back to the Denver airport, we (and everyone else on the road) had to stop to watch them walk down a vertical face of a mountain.

A simple piece of black slate with a rail engine and the words “Jim Thorpe” reminds us of a scenic rail gorge train ride near us in the coal mining region of northeast Pennsylvania. 

More sadly, we have a pre-9/11 magnet of the twin World Trade Center towers. I saw them, from a distance, on many business trips – as well as on the fateful train trip when I met my wife. (Sadly, I had hoped to take our daughter up the Twin Towers on another New York City trip, to Total Request Live (Total Request Live - Wikipedia) in the summer of 2001. We planned to go to the top on a return trip, at another time, but sadly never got the chance.)

My magnets also show the breadth of my travels, admittedly mostly on business. I have over 20 states, and many are license plates.  I also like state shapes - I have contiguous states for most of the Midwest and northeastern US.  I even have one US territory, two other countries (Canada, which we visited), Poland, and three Canadian provinces.

Anyone who knows my love of baseball will not be surprised by my many stadium magnets, including Camden Yards, Wrigley Field, and my hometown Citizens Bank Park. 

In some cases, we detoured slightly out of our way to get an unusual magnet.  I got a West Virginia magnet from a rest stop on I-81 on our way to Virginia. We didn’t need a “rest,” but stopped solely to see if I could get a magnet. My Wyoming license plate magnet was the result of a “departure day” side trip to that state, before flying home from Rocky Mountain National Park.  

Friends and business colleagues who knew of my collection even added to it.  A client with a plant in Kansas gave me not only a “Wizard of Oz” magnet during a board meeting in that state, but also one with the location town’s “hot” and “cold” water towers. 

Of course, as I have previously written about for VOE, I am a hometown booster. My local magnets include Benjamin Franklin’s tombstone epitaph (Transcript of Benjamin Franklin, Epitaph - Benjamin Franklin: In His Own Words | Exhibitions (Library of Congress)), photos of historic Philadelphia, and even some with Amish buggy puns from Lancaster County.

I even made several magnets of the recently deceased Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia in 2015. I combined my favorite quotes with iconic images from his visit, such as the closing public Mass in front of the Rocky Steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Many are school magnets, particularly a Handsome pugnacious bulldog dressed in blue and white.  Crimson and Gray Hawklets (St. Joseph's Prep - Mascot - St. Joseph's Prep | LinkedIn) appear, especially ones celebrating state football championships, as well as my own somewhat less successful high school athletic accomplishments on a tennis court.

Magnets – and great memories - from each of my Eagle Scout son’s summer camps are there as well.

Like Frank Sinatra, however, I’ve also had a few regrets – the magnets that got away. We spent a week’s vacation in Washington, DC, unexpectedly hiking on “free on foot” tours.  The quality of the guides not only inspired us to tip them well, but also to change our plans from museum visits in favor of more guided walking tours. However, I realized on the train ride home that I had forgotten to pick up the “I walked all over Washington” magnet I had seen in our hotel gift shop. Sometimes I could not find a location-specific magnet in the time not devoted to a business trip’s purpose.  I settled for interesting postcards from those trips - naturally, held up by a travel magnet, even if unrelated to its image.

By the way, have I told you about my other collections, of souvenir lapel pins and buttons?  I always proudly wear the Eagle Dad pin my son gave me at his Eagle Scout Court of Honor at Scouting occasions. I still have the college button pictured on my band jacket in our college yearbook, courtesy of an alumni group whose tailgate we serenaded. (In hindsight, perhaps that button inspired my magnet collection.)

For many years, I have also worn lapel pins supporting causes for which I advocate, particularly autism and disability awareness. In fact, sometimes those near me on a plane or at an airport gate have asked me about them. I have always been glad to explain why I wear them and my advocacy efforts. Some even mentioned that they would share that information with others whom they knew might benefit from it. In fact, the lapel pins have become my solace for the havoc wrought when we had to replace a major appliance during the Pandemic. 

After all the magnets came down before our old refrigerator was hauled away, we chose to live with a naked one in our kitchen – but I can still wear my favorite lapel pins.