Hobbies And Collections – Normal Or Strange, But Enjoyable
When I was a kid growing up, there were very few hobbies to choose from. Now, the number of hobbies available is almost unbelievable. There are more choices today than coin or stamp collecting for boys and sewing or knitting for girls. You may think the previous sentence sounds sexist, but I don’t mean it to be. That’s just how it was when I was growing up. My 94-year-old mother was still knitting toques with names on them for two tattoo shops until she passed away recently. I assume it was her hobby because she only made about $0.50 an hour for her effort.
Luckily, things have changed in a big way. Virtually any hobby is open to any gender if they have an interest. So, let’s look at some hobbies and collections from the past and what is in vogue today.
What Hobbies Are and What They Are Not
A hobby is a regular activity that a person likes to do in their leisure time. A hobby can be any activity that a person is interested in and enjoys doing. It can consist of collecting items related to a similar theme. Any artistic pursuit or craft is a hobby. Participating regularly in a sport or sports is a hobby. A hobby can even be fanatically watching and following a professional sports team.
However, there are certain activities that people like to do that are not considered hobbies. You can see where this is going. When I was teaching English in Japan, there were specific questions we would ask in the icebreaker, especially for beginner students. One of these questions was, “What are your hobbies?” Many high school students, who, by the way, are overworked in Japan, would answer eating and sleeping. Unfortunately, boys and girls, eating and sleeping are not hobbies. They are life-sustaining activities.
Common Hobbies
As I said, there weren’t many hobbies to choose from when I was a kid, especially for young kids. There were two in particular that I enjoyed when I was young.
Coin Collecting
When I was about seven years old, so this would be in 1957, I would get excited every time the milkman came, which, as I remember, was three times a week. He had a huge leather pouch filled with coins. At least once a week, he would dump all the coins on our kitchen table so I could go through them looking for old ones.
What was considered old coins at that time weren’t very old because Queen Elizabeth II of England and Canada, as well, had just become queen in 1952. Her father, King George VI, reigned from 1936 to 1952. Therefore, there were still a lot of King George VI coins in circulation.
I would get excited if I found an Edward VIII coin or a George V coin. Those coins are old today; they can be valuable if they are in reasonable shape.
Collecting Hockey and Football Cards
Collecting sports cards was very popular with boys when I was in elementary school. Whenever we had a few coins, we used to walk about a mile across an empty field to a little corner store near the church. The problem was which cards to buy. For 5¢, we could get a package of four, either hockey or football cards and a flat piece of sickeningly sweet, pink bubble gum.
I usually got the hockey cards. At that time, only six teams were in the NHL (National Hockey League): two Canadian (the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs) and four American (the Boston Bruins, the Chicago Black Hawks, the Detroit Red Wings, and the New York Rangers). I was really into hockey, and keeping track of 6 teams was much easier than the current 32 teams.
The football I’m referring to differs from the football of Europe and South America. It was and is Canadian football, a variation of American football. Anyway, I have fond memories of trading my duplicate sports cards with my friends, sometimes getting the better deal and sometimes not.
Travel-Related Hobbies
While we consider travel a hobby if you do enough of it, several other hobbies associated with travel are also hobbies.
By far, the most common of these is photography. When travelling to a foreign country, especially one that attracts tourists, seeing someone without a camera or a cell phone with a selfie stick would be unusual. Often, these photos are never looked at again, especially those taken with a phone, but you did preserve your memories.
Collecting postcards from all the places you have travelled to is also a popular hobby. However, it’s not as popular as it used to be because the cameras on cell phones make it so easy to capture postcard-like pictures. Also, for this reason, local postcards aren’t as easy to find as they once were.
Many years ago, when travelling throughout North America, picking up a pennant from all the cities and small towns you travelled through was common. A pennant was a triangular piece of felt with the city or town’s name and often a logo depicting what the place was famous for. They came in many different colour combinations and made an exciting display on any teenager’s bedroom wall. I haven’t seen a pennant for years, so I guess they are from a bygone era.
Strange Hobbies
There were some strange and unusual hobbies when I was a kid. In those days, kids depended on their own imaginations and other kids to keep life interesting. No internet, you see.
The weirdest hobby I can remember from those days was collecting broken coloured pencil leads. Of course, what else would you do when your coloured pencil breaks? Sharpen it again and keep the piece that broke off. Many kids had special little boxes for keeping these colourful pieces of uselessness. I never could understand this hobby. My appreciation for weirdness developed later in life.
Internet Weird
The internet is mainly known for passing on information, misinformation, and gossip. But most of all, it’s a famous source of weirdness—almost anything you can imagine someone has posted about it on the internet. Let’s look at a few things people consider hobbies today. Smile, laugh, or just shake your head, but apparently, these are things people actually do in their free time.
Whittling
Picture a hillbilly sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of an unpainted shack. In one hand, he is holding a stick. There is nothing special about this stick; it’s just a stick. In his other hand, he is holding a knife. It could be a jackknife or a kitchen knife; all that matters is that it’s reasonably sharp. He will use the knife to cut off little wood shavings from the stick. There is no purpose to this activity other than to pass the time. And that’s whittling.
Now, this could turn into something much more creative. But, then, it is generally referred to as carving and involves more varied tools.
Dumpster Diving
This hobby is too dirty and disgusting for me. A dumpster is a big garbage container usually placed outside apartment complexes or businesses such as restaurants. The name is misleading because you don’t actually dive into the dumpster. It’s more like awkwardly climbing into it without breaking or injuring any part of your body. The purpose of this hobby is to search through the garbage, hoping to find something of value. If someone else threw it away, chances are it no longer has value.
Making Fireworks
Setting off fireworks can be hazardous enough if you buy them professionally made. When I was a kid, I remember hearing about a kid in the neighbourhood who had his eye blown out. He put a ladyfinger in a pop bottle. When it didn’t explode in a reasonable amount of time, he put the mouth of the bottle up to his eye to take a look. From that day on, he has had to wear an eyepatch. Making fireworks adds a new dimension to potentially blowing off one of your extremities. As well as being dangerous, fireworks are now illegal in the province where I live.
People can do whatever they want in their free time as long as it is legal and doesn’t harm anyone else. However, some of these weird internet activities bring out the stupidity in people. If you are someone who enjoys any of the last three “hobbies” listed above, please don’t take my comments personally. Remember that this post is for entertainment and, more importantly, to help people participate in a valuable and enjoyable hobby: studying a foreign language.
And Now For Your Listening Enjoyment
Here’s Ed Sheeran’s 2014 recording of Photograph. It talks about the importance of photographs in preserving our memories. And photography is a popular hobby for travellers.
Lyrics
"Photograph" Recorded by Ed Sheeran (2014) Written by Ed Sheeran and Johnny McDaid Loving can hurt Loving can hurt sometimes But it's the only thing That I know And when it gets hard You know it can get hard sometimes It is the only thing that makes us feel alive We keep this love in a photograph We make these memories for ourselves Where our eyes are never closing Hearts are never broken And time's forever frozen still So you can keep me Inside the pocket of your ripped jeans Holdin' me closer 'til our eyes meet You won't ever be alone Wait for me to come home Loving can heal Loving can mend your soul And is the only thing That I know, know I swear it will get easier Remember that with every piece of ya, mmm And it's the only thing we take with us when we die, mmm We keep this love in a photograph We make these memories for ourselves Where our eyes are never closing Hearts were never broken And time's forever frozen still So you can keep me Inside the pocket of your ripped jeans Holdin' me closer 'til our eyes meet You won't ever be alone And if you hurt me Well, that's okay, baby, only words bleed Inside these pages, you just hold me And I won't ever let you go Wait for me to come home Wait for me to come home Wait for me to come home Wait for me to come home Oh, you can fit me Inside the necklace, you got when you were 16 Next to your heartbeat, where I should be Keep it deep within your soul And if you hurt me Well, that's okay, baby, only words bleed Inside these pages, you just hold me And I won't ever let you go When I'm away I will remember how you kissed me Under the lamppost back on 6th street Hearing you whisper through the phone Wait for me to come home
The above essay is for entertainment and English language study only. For suggestions on how to use this post to improve your English reading and listening comprehension, click here.
Vocabulary
- sexist – adjective; behaviour or attitudes derived from a traditional stereotype of sexual roles; boys can do this, and girls can do that
- toque – (Cdn) noun; a close-fitting knitted hat often with a tassel or pompom on the crown; a Canadian knitted hat
- gender – noun; a person’s sex; either of the sexes; male or female
- in vogue – noun; in fashion, generally current; popular today
- fanatically – adverb; devoted to a hobby, pastime, sport, etc.; extremely interested is something
- icebreaker – noun; something that serves to relieve inhibitions, start a conversation, etc.; easy language to begin a foreign language class
- life-sustaining – adjective; necessary to stay alive
- sickeningly – adjective; causing or liable to cause sickness or nausea; likely to make you sick
- duplicate – adjective; copied or exactly like something already existing; more than one exactly the same
- selfie stick – noun; a stick on which to mount your cell phone to take pictures of yourself with a background
- preserve – verb; keep alive (a name, memory, etc.); keep memories alive (in this context)
- logo – noun; a symbol designed for and used by a company or organization as its special sign; a symbol representing a community (in this context)
- depict – transitive verb; represent in a drawing or painting, etc.; show in a picture
- bygone – adjective; past; in the past
- uselessness – noun; serving no purpose; something with no use
- gossip – noun; idle talk; groundless rumour; talk about someone else when they are not there; maybe true, maybe not
- hillbilly – (esp. US) noun; often derogatory; a person from a remote or mountainous area; an uneducated person from the backwoods or mountains
- hazardous – adjective; risk, dangerous; dangerous
- ladyfinger – noun; a small, red firecracker
- extremities – noun pl; the outermost parts of the body, esp. the hands and feet; hands (fingers) and feet (toes) in this context
- stupidity – noun; showing lack of good judgement; foolish (a stupid idea); carelessness or lack of common sense (in this context)
Comprehension Questions
- Did you have a hobby when you were a child?
Yes or No
If “Yes”, what was it? - Do you have a hobby now?
Yes or No
If “Yes”, what is it? - Is watching and following a professional sports team a hobby?
Yes or No - Is sleeping a hobby?
Yes or No - Who would dump all the coins on our kitchen table?
(a) the mailman, (b) the breadman, (c) the milkman, or (d) the garbageman - Who was Queen Elizabeth II’s father?
(a) George VI, (b) Edward VIII, (c) George V, or (d) Paul McCartney - How many hockey or football cards could I buy for 5¢?
(a) one, (b) two, (c) three, or (d) four - A pennant is a piece of __________ .
(a) circular felt, (b) triangular felt, (c) rectangular felt, or (d) square felt - According to this article, there is no purpose to whittling other than to pass the time. What do you do for no other reason than to pass the time?
- Have you ever put a ladyfinger in a pop bottle?
Yes or No
Resources
- 97 Best Unique Hobbies – Activities to challenge yourself.
