Just call him Joe. I don’t know what he did for a living; I don’t know if he traveled frequently or rarely. All I know is that he loved matchbooks. He used them, which meant he was practical. But he saved them, which meant something else. I don’t know if he appreciated the way they looked, or considered them tokens of places and dates he didn’t mind remembering, or both. If he thought about it at all, he’d probably shrug. Like most matchbook collectors, he probably didn’t consider it a real pastime, a true hobby. It was just something he did. Collect? Nah. He just saved them. Peculiar people collect junk. Thrifty people save.

If the books are mostly cafes and motels, you have a man who spent his time on the road. If they’re all bars and Vegas, you have a drinker. If there’s no pattern – if you have cafes, hat shops, drug stores, coal suppliers, gas stations – then you have, most likely, a smoker. Lots of drug store matches from different towns could mean a lousy stomach, or just a tobacco habit. Many restaurant matches might mean a fellow on the road who did his paperwork over a hamburger every night, or a man with a wife who hated to cook. Or it could mean nothing; even a fellow who has no time for fancy meals can collect a few café matchbooks in 20 years. A man who has two matchbooks from a haberdasher could be vain, or a sloppy dresser who had to replace a suit that no longer fit. So everything I say in the next 200 pages is half wrong, half right, and 100% speculation. Make up your own story, if you like. Joe’s not around to argue.