About Michigan Breweriana On-Line & Me

		About MBO & Me

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About Myself

Hello! I thought you might like to know who is crazy enough to undertake a project like Michigan Breweriana On-Line. Let me tell you a little rambling story about myself and my collecting obsession (whether you care or not remains to be seen!). My name is Gary Bauer and I live in the Central Michigan Area. I grew up in Rochester, Michigan, which is located in the northern suburbs of Detroit.
I got my start collecting beer cans in the summer of 1976 when my parents and I took a trip to the east coast to visit Washington D.C., Gettysburg, and other historic areas for the Bicentennial. My brother's father-in-law was a beer can collector and had ask my father to pick up some unusual beer cans along the way for him....not that there were any different cans available around the Bicentennial (Hah!). Very soon I was caught up in trying to find new and unusual cans to take home for him. My poor father had to suffer through drinking all sorts of swill in fancy Bicentennial cans. I decided to keep one of each brand that we bought for myself and I was hooked.

I quickly got caught up in the beer can collecting craze of the time. I even gave up some of my earlier collecting obsessions: stamps & comic books. I still have my stamp collection, but I traded my comic book collection to a friend for a bunch of cans. The cans were pretty good, but I think that he really got the better end of that deal considering some of the more valuable comics that I had back then. In 1977 I joined the BCCA. I joined the Stroh's Fire Brewed Chapter and was one of the charter members of the Johnny Pfeiffer Chapter. It didn't take long before my

collecting friends and I were out hunting down dumps on our bicycles. We spent days rooting through each of the dumps we found, coming home sweaty and crusted in dirt but proud of our finds of the day. I look back on it now and I wish I would have had the foresight to have kept some of the other old things that we dug up....like old oil cans and other things that have become valuable collectables.

Then came summer vacation time! Once again I subjected my father to all sorts of foul swill in cool looking cans that I found at every store we went into. I was checking behind every gas station we stopped at looking for the elusive cans. When we stopped for lunch at rest areas I spent more time looking through the trash and climbing back in the bushes looking for cans than I spent eating. Luckily we had some extra room in the trailer and I was able to come back from those trips loaded with good cans to add the the collection. I soon had our basement walls lined with shelves full of hundreds of cans. Luckily my parents humored me through all of this.

In my Sophomore year of high school we had to give a demonstration speech for English class. I manage to convince my teacher to let me do my speech on the History of the Beer Can. I brought in examples of cans from various eras and of various types and proceeded to enlighten the class about the wonders of Beer Cans. It was a hit with the class, but I can't remember what grade I got on the speech.

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Revised: December 30, 2006