The Mast-Head: His and Hers

Lacking much of an idea for a column this week, I took a short walk over to the East Hampton Library. After tiptoeing past a number of people focused on their computers, I went into the magazine room and settled in a chair after picking up a copy of Treasures: Antique to Modern Collecting, which got me thinking.

My own collecting has no particular form, unlike, say, people who scour the markets for cast-iron tractor seats or frog figurines. Still, I am fascinated by those who develop passions for whatever it is and pursue them. Then, too, the differences between the genders, at least in our house, are notable.

The guys, counting myself, assemble action-related objects. Ellis, who is 5, likes Lego kits to make specific battle figures, although he also likes his blue stuffed animals. I go in for surfboards, of which I have perhaps 10, though only about half are in good enough shape to ride; the others are what one might charitably call projects. My other sizable accumulation is of fishing gear, more rods than I can estimate and, in the basement, cardboard boxes of lures, hooks, line, wire crimpers, waders, nets, weights, and who knows what.

As for the women in the house, as best I can tell, they collect bottles of shampoo. I’m not kidding.

Nearly every horizontal surface in one of the bathrooms is lined with them, all shapes and sizes, some precariously designed so that if I so much as look at them the wrong way they will cascade to the floor.

All shampoo puzzles me. The way I see it, you find a brand you like and then stick with it. Not so the ladies, apparently, that is my wife and two daughters. Our house has bottles boasting avocado, bounce enhancement, color control, jojoba, and argan oil.

This last shampoo reminds me that on our honeymoon in Morocco we saw goats climbing argan trees, though it is not likely that my wife bought this particular shampoo concoction in fond memory of the trip; the sad, half-used-up bottle spent the winter in the outdoor shower on the deck.