Will collected rocks when he was young. Every time he went outside he came back into the house with his pockets full of rocks. I always checked his pockets for rocks before washing his clothes. Otherwise, the dryer would make quite a racket.

When we went up north to Grandma’s house, he was delighted. The old farm had been tilled over and over to eek a living out of rocky soil; and in the process beautiful rocks had been brought to the surface. Sparkly granite was strewn all about the old garden, petosky stones, pudding rocks, black shiny pebbles, and agates to be split open.

He also collected vehicles. His name for anything with wheels was vehicles. We had to teach him something else beside trucks, which to our alarm, he pronounced with an “f”, so we taught him “vehicle.” Matchbox vehicles, micro machine vehicles, Tonka vehicles. At first, he liked to spin the wheels; but later, he enjoyed lining them up.

We tried to get Mary interested in dolls, thinking she could role play with them, or we attempted to role play with her. No dice. She was only interested in her Little People collection. She made them slide down the slides over and over again. She put them through the doors and out the doors.