Cookie jars? Humph, we never even gave them a thought. Whatever for? Well, one day we were at the Shaker Woods Festival in Ohio. We always enjoyed the crafts, and of course, the food. I saw a woman hand painting canisters and thought she was quite good and the pictures were very cute. They happened to be Robinson Ransbottom blanks she was doing. My eye caught two mice, a girl and boy, holding a big chocolate chip cookie, with him taking a bite out of it (that Adam and Eve thing, I guess!). Somehow, we were attracted to it and for a price it was ours. Gee, how darn cute.

That wasn't the end, however. But we didn't know that, yet. It seems that we got back into going to auctions like we had years ago in upstate NY. Many of our years were taken by raising grand champion Russian Blue cats, but we got out of that hobby for various reasons. We attended an outdoor auction in the mountains in Ligonier, PA and when looking through things we spotted two cookie jars, and said, "Hmmmmm". At that point we decided to bid on them when they came up figuring they have to be worth something. We got the first one for $20! Indeed, later we found it was a bargain, as it was Ransbottom Jack the sailor in excellent condition. The next one we really liked and fought harder to get it. We paid $90 for Elsie the cow. This was the beginning of the "great addiction".

Like a lot of new collectors, we found so many things to be cute- woe were we! We got the books, we found out about the Nashville show, we went crazy -- thus, Crazy Couple, as most people thought we were. I think that was about eight years ago or so -- never did keep count -- too busy collecting and drooling over jars.

Several years ago we "culled" our collection of about 750 or so jars and now have about 250-300 left. There are certain ones we love. Jim somehow cherishes the Twin Winton Dobbin (hey, some guys you just can't figure). I must admit I do like Sigma Mamma Cat. Our very favorites after those jars are the space theme jars, Casper, Metlox Red Riding Hood and Hull Red Riding Hood stuff too, Regal majorette and Peek-a-boo, the Flintstones and also most any Halloween jar we can find. I have several angels too, which are harder to find than any. This lead us into appreciating all pottery, thus we have collections of McCoy and Gonder and several coveted pieces by artists like Kataro Shiryamadani, Tot Steele and more (Rookwood, Owens, Weller etc). These jars have created monsters! It has also created a book we did on Gonder, which should be out either late summer or early fall. Who would have thought they would be so inspirational. They also helped to create two appraisers and Jim as a licensed auctioneer! We surely have been on an odyssey and are continuing our journey where we have met wonderful people and things that have made people smile.

*Editor's note: Carol and Jim be married 30 years in March. Their first date was on a Friday night; Sunday Jim asked Carol to marry him! What a Valentine's story! Carol laughingly says, "Who says we're crazy?" Our thanks to the Boshears for letting us get to know them better.