Posts Written By L Parker Brown

It’s fun collecting things when you are young.  Some folks collect ticket stubs or greeting cards, others collect money-making items like stamps or coins.  I know a lady who collects pens, felt pens, fountain pens, ball points.  One of my aunts collects dolls, another collects bells.  I collect slogan buttons.  I have a plastic box containing over 400 of them in various shapes, sizes and colors.  I started collecting buttons in the 1970s. Several of them have political slogans. The most unique button in my prized collection is a 1960s campaign button reading “John F. Kennedy for President.”  Some of my buttons depict pop stars like Boy George and Michael Jackson.  There is also a Yoda from Star Wars 1977 button, an Oliver North re Iran–Contra button and there’s even a Clare “Where’s the Beef” Peller button.  

When I first started collecting buttons, I bought nearly every button I saw.  If I saw someone wearing a button that I didn’t already have, I’d ask for it. I even had friends bringing me buttons. Some of my buttons have serious messages, others have funny slogans.  There are buttons with witty sayings and racy (X-rated) buttons.  I believe I even have an anti-buttons button.  

As I said, when you are young it is fun collecting things, but when you get older collections sometimes become just clutter.  One day, I asked myself what am I going to do with those buttons that I have tucked in the closet.  It is no longer fun to spread them out on the floor and read them or show them to friends or relatives when they come to visit.  I thought about trying to sell them on Craigslist or EBay, and then I wondered whether anyone would buy them.  Who wants unnecessary stuff like buttons cluttering their home?  We live in a throwaway society, which is probably what will happen to my once treasured button collection.  I’ll throw it out.  Maybe the trash collector collects buttons.  May he will see the plastic box containing my buttons and retrieve them. That would be nice to have someone rescue my buttons.  Buttons.  Who needs them?