After every cruise I set aside some ephemera from the trip - the keycard, the deck plan, a few of the daily activity programs that show up outside your door every evening. I don't save the offers to take a class on digital photography, or participate in an art auction - to name two things that never vary, year in and year out. I always wonder if this is excessive. My wife notes that I save too many things as it is.

True! But they go in a plastic envelope marked with the year, and are filed away in the boxes under the stairs, so it's not as if they clutter up the house.

Even if they did.

Someone fifty years ago set aside a few things from their cruise, and a year or two ago whatever kid or executor was responsible for cleaning out the house sent them to the antique store.

We have programs, menus, a welcoming letter . . . and a dozen pictures of the interior.