The Orange Juice Container

I don’t remember how. I don’t remember where I got the idea. I only remember the why.

When I was 10 and my grandfather was turning 65, heading into retirement after a lifetime of orphanages, foster homes, depression and recession, war and years of putting the windows on some of the world’s tallest buildings at the time and thousands of hours in a cab when the weather didn’t permit hanging glass outside, the orange juice container made its appearance.

My grandfather collected stamps. Lots of them. He wanted his three grandsons to learn about the hobby and take it up. My older cousins didn’t. I did for a couple of years until I discovered Atari, Bally and arcades.

There were hundreds of stamps from all over the world. Different shapes, sizes, colors, denominations, used and unused. The used ones always intrigued me the most. What did the stamp deliver? A letter to a soldier in Europe or Japan? A bill? A payment? A birth or wedding announcement? Thank you card? Or a notice of illness or death?

The unused stamps, while they cost more, hadn’t yet served their purpose and like collecting coins or paper currency, by taking them out of circulation, wouldn’t make it to be traded or used in commerce someday. They were going to be collected and thus not used.

Most of the stamps my grandfather gave me where from the ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. I had a small sense of appreciation for the artwork, the perforations, colors and people, topics, events or places they commemorated. Washington, Lincoln, Eisenhower, space exploration, expeditions, football, horse racing and the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America. Back when boys did Boy Scouts and girls did Girl Scouts.

Like horse racing (and auto racing for that matter), I could see the interest in the matters but didn’t became a fan. Horses or cars making left hand turns for 1 mile or 200 miles didn’t hold my interest. Stamps couldn’t compete with Atari or the arcade, and later, girl scouts selling cookies.

I could see how my grandfather enjoyed the hobby. Philately could be an affordable hobby (before stamps cost 50 cents and you have to buy them by the sheet). For three cents or a nickel you could buy a stamp a month and collect them. Used and unused. Trade them or display them.

Years later he would use the stamps he spent decades collecting as simple postage, put back into circulation to mail a bill, birthday check or on a postcard from their latest vacation experience.

Perhaps I saw it in a Boy’s Life or Life magazine issue. Perhaps not. I don’t remember.

Somehow I had the idea to glue used stamps to the outside of an orange juice container. This could be my grandfather’s 65^th birthday present. He would appreciate the duplicate or triplicate copies of the stamps being used for something now that they had served their purpose. The container itself would be a holder for his pens, pencils, stamp tongs, magnifying glasses, perforation guides, scissors and perhaps even cigars, all tools of the trade he used to collect stamps.

He was sure to appreciate the thought, the workmanship, the theme and of course the stamps themselves.

Not exactly.

I was scolded for destroying the essentially worthless “collectibles”. My grandfather didn’t appreciate the thought, creativity or workmanship (which for a 10 year old was not bad I thought). He told me I didn’t appreciate the hobby, what the stamps were to be used for, how they were to be collected and wasting what amounted to about twenty-five cents worth of used stamps. You could buy dozens of them for a dollar. My neighbors would give them to me with postmarks from different cities and perhaps even different countries.

So, the orange juice container, lined by stamps glued on the sides, like a coin or dollar bill collected or an unused ticket for a rained out baseball game, would not trade hands.

I was left with little choice but keep it or destroy it.

I kept it.

For the past nearly 40 years it has sat on my desk in middle school, high school, college and med school. It has been on desks in the Army, the Veterans Administration and large tertiary referral centers and community hospitals alike. It has traveled from Chicago to Michigan and back. From Chicago to the East Coast and back. Twice. It has been to Maryland and Minnesota, North and South Carolina. The cancelled stamps and their “container” have flown to Europe, also twice, to hold those pens for use with the “invisible” pages in books your parent’s bought you for long trips. It has flown in first class and coach. Italy, Germany and Switzerland have been visited by the rejected orange juice container. It was never called to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Now it sits close to where it was created, or at least, decorated, next to a microscope much as it has for twenty plus years.  Holding pencils, marking pens, highlighters, erasers, rubber bands, paper clips, blue, red and black pens. Markers, colored pencils, crayons and of course those special pens to complete the books on the plane.

Bits of lead and green and blue and black and red and blue ink along with yellow, orange and purple ink have pockmarked the inside, leaving the stamps alone.

Most days I don’t think about it. Most days it simply holds pens and pencils and markers. The likeness of people named George, Abraham, Dwight and someone named Frank Lloyd Wright simply cover writing below them that reads “Minute Maid” or “Tropicana” or “Generic”. I don’t remember.

Some days I think about my grandfather, ruining the stamps he gave me and appreciate more what they mean.