Ebay has entered America's rags-to-riches mythology, one more scheme for the get-rich-quick artists.
When I got serious this year about cleaning out the dusty corners of our closets, I discovered that there is nothing "quick" about ebay auctions and that its "riches" have little to do with making money.
As I posted the dog-eared postcards of 1912, I became a social worker preparing my homely wards for adoption. And when I sold a Japanese hotel postcard back to a man who lived in the same city in Japan, I celebrated sending one of my orphans back to her home community. The job took on magic.
My friend Fugai put it this way:
Apart from a place to conduct commerce, ebay seems to be a kind of way-station for intricate global dances of exchange, a kind of boundless, endless match-making/adoption agency. There are gazillions of fragments and bits and pieces in garages, attics and closets all over the world yearning to go home, and then there are people who could be anywhere from next door to the other side of the globe who are yearning and searching.
My journal at Mad in Pursuit is full of entries showing my transformation from impatient trashmonger to cultural historian and fussy shopkeeper. I finally posted an index page to pull together the continuing story.
6:28:00 AM 
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