Collect into your Life

My grandfather's advice and what it meant

I remember my grandparents’ house in photographic detail, each view, each object and the way they made me feel. They lived on the highest row on Table Mountain; the backyard was wild and the living room looked out onto terraced gardens sloping down to a fish pond. You could sit there, wind blowing in the trees and watch the city and bay at the tip of Africa. It was magical.

My grandfather was a collector. Years later, during my freshman year at Brown, I met another collector’s grandson, Bill Getty. I knew little of his history as this was before the internet but I was vaguely aware that John Paul Getty had developed vast oil wells in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and owned thousands of gas stations that bore his name. What I also knew viscerally was that I disliked Bill. 6’ 7” and handsome, he’d grown up in San Francisco and carried a bottomless Amex card which he flexed on expensive guitars, computers, exotic pets, clothes and copious amounts of whatever drugs caught his fancy.

If you’d asked me about my distaste back then, I’d have called him “appalling”, “rude” or “distasteful” - all true but not-specific. It’s taken half a lifetime to figure out the true cause of my feelings. It comes down to a simple question: “Why do people collect?”

My grandfather’s famous line to me came when he was a very old man. Half paralyzed, he looked me in the eyes and said, “Collect into your Life”. I knew it was important, but I didn’t understand why.

His collections included stamps, maps, journals of exploration, Judaica (including magic Hebrew Amulets), netsuke, samurai sword hilts, snuff boxes and a little visual art. To quantify it is hard but the walls of the house were covered in maps or etchings. The dining room displayed 40 - 50 very old menorahs and the books lined his library and were often consulted. What made him a collector was curiosity and acquisitiveness - he desired things and loved them enough to live with them.

There was also the high of mastering a field, knowing what was good or bad and hunting for it until completion. For a man with physical limitations it must have been thrilling to enroll others in the search for a prize.

But each item also had a meaning, a story of its origins and acquisition that would be recited whenever a stranger came to visit.

Back to Bill Getty now. Of course I disliked him because he was clumsy and rude and because I envied his wealth. But quietly, I also thought, “Your grandfather wasn’t qualified to serve mine tea”. Horrible, wasn’t I?

After our Freshman year, I decided to spend the summer in Berkeley, CA. One day I called Bill knowing vaguely that he lived in San Francisco. He was friendly enough and gave us the address, a 4-digit # on Broadway. We piled into my 1971 gold Cadillac and drove across the bridge, through a strange tunnel and up 15 or 20 hills, each steeper than the one before. At the top and painted bright white, stretching a city block, was the Getty house.

The door looked medieval, with a huge brass lion’s head knocker. I knocked and Bill arrived, bouncing with enthusiasm as he lead us through the mansion. The views were absurd, the decorations, mirrors and furniture, heavily gilded. He opened one door for us to look in and said, “This is the chair room”. Hundreds of golden chairs, symmetrically stored and unused.

We left shortly afterwards. Driving down the hills we had climbed, I realized our grandfathers were nothing alike. His was a businessman. Mine was a doctor first, collector second. I suspect they would have detested each other. More accurately, JP Getty would’t have been interested in my grandfather at all. Not in his taste, scholarship or motivations. Getty’s collecting seemed a kind of pathology, oil wells, money and 6 wives. His lasciviousness was legend. For him, people were a subset of objects, the accumulation of which interested them. Hoarding.

I could go on about the merits of the Getty Museum but it’s besides the point. Collectors collect for various reasons - for interest, desire and profit. It is a beautiful hobby. My grandfather’s advice - “Collect into your Life” is something I’ve grown and matured with. At first I collected baseball cards, then records and eventually books. He had a saying that went along with the first - “When you see something you like, buy it”.

I always thought he was talking about collectibles, treasures that might elude a person who paused too long. After falling in love and marrying, I know he meant “people”. Relationships are the most important collectibles. They always grow in value especially as you continue to invest in them.

I’ll close with my last memory of Bill Getty, to whom I now wish only the best. Classes were over out final year and we lived on the same floor. The building was hot and parents milled around in front of the dorm, waiting to help their kids schlep futons to the cars. It was our final hour of the shared squalor of college. A moment before meritocracy and privilege returned.

Suddenly, someone poked their head in my door and shouted, “Come quick, you’ve gotta see this!” I followed him up to the top floor and arrived just in time to see Bill, standing at the window sill, hurling his possessions down 5 floors to the moat. The $10K Apple was gone, next came the 12-string Martin guitar. Finally, the 100 gallon fish tank, fish and all. He applauded each destruction like a demented Roman Emperor in the Colosseum.

It was just easier destroy it than give it away.

I turned and returned to get my futon, not sure where I was heading in life but proud of where I’d come from.