1999
Collecting My 100th River
by Rick Reinhardt
(Reprinted with permission from The Canewago Canoe Club, York, PA newsletter Paddle Talk)
Ever since I was a young boy, I remember having collections of one kind or another. The first collections I recall were of items, that to this day, attract the attention of young boys. There was a time when my baseball card collection was my prized possession. I don't remember much about the cards I had, except that Jim Gentile was probably my favorite. What I remember most about collecting baseball cards were the friendships I made trading the cards. I still see some of those early friends.
Another early collection of mine was coins. My parents would endure me examining each and every coin they would accumulate throughout the day. When I found a coin that I did not have, I organized my findings by cataloging the coin's description, condition and value. I then stored the coin in a display book.
The third collection I recall having as a young boy was akin to a child's version of the present day instant lottery. This involved the purchase of Mallow Cup candy. To a boy with a passion for collecting, the Mallow Cup is not just any ordinary piece of candy. Inside every Mallow Cup is a Mallow Cup coin of varying values. When I was a boy, after you collected $5.00 in Mallow Cup coins, the company would send you a free box of Mallow Cups. Although I didn't much care for the candy, I loved the excitement of finding a high valued coin of 10 cents inside one of those packages.
As time went on, I used my baseball card collection to turn my bicycle into a motorbike. I accomplished this by mounting the cards next to the wheel spokes. This emitted a putt-putt sound that mimicked a motorbike as the spokes destroyed the valuable baseball card. About the same time, I was getting sick of eating boxes of Mallow Cups. This meant only one thing; it was time for a new collection.
My passion for collecting turned to butterflies and moths. My cousin and I did pretty good with our collections, winning several 1st and 2nd prizes at the York Fair. This collection taught me the value of research that is necessary for traveling to remote locations to find allusive specimens. One of these ventures took me to Tygart State Park, where I didn't even notice the river.
When I turned 16, it was time to sell my coin collection for a down payment on my first car. That also meant it was time for a new collection. My new collection put me in old dumps digging for York beer bottles from the 1890's-1920. After years of rooting in dumps, bidding at auctions and selling at flea markets, I had a respectable collection and history of beer, liquor, soda and medicine bottles from the York area.
About 11 years ago, I started my most exciting collection to date. It combined attributes from my previous collecting passions into one activity. From the friends in trading baseball cards, to the organizational skills in cataloging coins. From the excitement in finding a high value Mallow Cup coin, to the research necessary for traveling to remote locations to find that allusive butterfly. To the history learned while collecting old bottles, all of these attributes have helped make canoeing my 100th river the most rewarding collection of all.
I have no regrets that my collection of rivers paddled is not something I can put in a display case or on a mantel. It is not so much a list of places visited, but more a reflection of paths taken, passions yearned for, attributes learned and goals attained. Perhaps, best of all, this achievement better prepares me for the beginning of my next collection, genealogy research.
