The Roots of My Picking

How does one become a picker?  What exactly is a picker, anyway?  I used to think it was a not so nice word for antique dealers.  Now I realize there is nothing wrong with the word and picking is exactly what dealers of all sorts actually do.  They pick (over) items offered to them, whether in an actual store setting or by hitting all the neighborhood garage sales. 

  I became a picker in another way.  It is a long standing family tradition.  It's in my blood.  My grandfather headed north to the gold fields in the late 1800's.  While he didn't find gold, he was one of the few folks to locate tin ore in the continental United States.  Essentially he was a picker, a miner, always on the lookout for the next big find.   He and my father mined the area of Alaska known as the Bering Peninsula, the "nose" of Alaska.  In a family history book my father wrote, is a small piece of paper with the tin claims sketched out in pencil.  One I remember was named The Yankee Girl.  (Hummm, I wonder if that piece has any value?)
  Alaska contributed much to our family's picking efforts.  In the 1940's, you didn't run to the mall for the next new thing.  Your choice was to order from the Sears catalog and wait six months.  (It came by boat).  Or you found a second hand store. 
  When we moved outside, (leaving Alaska term), my parents struggled to feed and clothe four kids on little income.  (Mining doesn't always pay good).  So second hand it was. 
  I picked later as a young bride with two children and a husband in the military.  Mostly walked to the one possibility in town with the kids in a well used baby carriage; plenty of room for two active children AND stuff. 
  At one point, married to a man who occupation had been as a clean up guy.  He'd come to your house and clean out your attic or garage.  This before so many folks out of work took it up as a profession.  This husband was a saver; a collector of sorts.  That's when I discovered eBay and what to do with all the stuff I (and that husband) had been saving and collecting over the years. 
  When I moved to Arizona my daughter suggested I may need to find another hobby, as there was little to "shop", (my daughter is a mall person), in Phoenix.  Little does she know.  I think I could easily set up a map, much as those maps of the stars homes, so popular in California. 
  I pick to stay active; because I like knowing about stuff and as a second income.  Though at times the 'stuff' threatens to take over my home, I still love to shop, to pick in the odd corner or dusty shop.  It's who I am.