Shot Glass Collection

Student Collector

Aubrey SquiresFollow

Date Collected

Winter 12-5-2017

Place item was collected

Hyrum, Utah

Informant

Erika Schvaneveldt

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Erika is a 30 year old Caucasian female. She was raised in Providence Utah, and currently lives in College Ward. She is a QA Supplier Coordinator at Gossner Foods. She is the only girl out of two children and her brother is the oldest. Some of her family is non-denominational Christian and some are a part of other religions. Erika graduated from Utah State University in 2012 and earned a Bachelor’s in Psychology. Her hobbies include: home improvements, reading, piano playing, snowboarding, fishing, and making jewelry. Her relationship to the interviewer is friend.

Context

This interview was done in my living room on the floor. Her husband was in the same room sitting on the couch. He only said a few things occasionally. It was in the middle of the day and the room that we were in was lit by the sun. The interview took about fifteen minutes to complete and the informant was happy to tell me the story behind her collection. “I was pretty young, maybe thirteen or fourteen. I started liking shot glasses because my brother collected them. Anytime I would travel somewhere new with the family, we would pick up another shot glass. I would buy them for the memories of traveling with the family. We would buy them and put them aside on the shelf in our home. The very first one was probably the one I got from Hawaii. There wasn’t anything too fancy on it, just a gecko, but it worked. It was not just us going out and buying them, people who knew I collected shot glasses would give them to me. Anytime my friends would go somewhere, they would ask me if I wanted anything. I would tell them to bring me back a shot glass. One of my friends went on a carnival cruise and she brought me back a carnival shot glass. It just said carnival on it. I can’t even remember where she went, but she probably stole it from the cruise ship. It’s green on the bottom so it lit up green under light. The last shot glass that I received from one of my friends was bought in Cancun. I think the last one me and my husband bought was when we went to Holly Wood California two years ago. It has the classic Holly Wood sign on it in black and white. We bought it to remind us of where we went and the stories behind the trip. I have a couple of favorites. One is an icee color with a pink flamingo on it. It looks like a diamond and it is a little blingy too. I probably have five blingy shot glasses. They are like ten dollars for the little glass ones and the others you can get for a couple of dollars. Another one that I really like is from the Hard Rock Café. I really like the Hard Rock Café’s because they have memorabilia hanging on the inside walls, like Jimmy Hendricks’ guitar. Being in the Hard Rock Cafés remind me of my past. I was looking at the collection this morning and I remembered when I got each one. The Holly Wood one I forgot about until I saw it again then the memories hit me. That was the last one I bought. For a while there, I was a big buyer of them, but I slowed down on adding new ones to my collection. There is an awesome story about my husband’s friend. He started making pottery at Utah State University and there was one time where he made two shot glasses out of pottery for Sam and me. I was impressed by the quality of these shot glasses. These shot glasses remind us of that friend.”

Text

The picture on the left is of a Gecko, which is the first shot glass Erika collected from Hawaii when she went with her family. The Second picture is of the last shot glass she bought in Holly Wood California. The third picture is of the last shot glass she received from a friend from Cancun. The fourth picture is of the current shot glasses she has displayed in her house.

Texture

These shot glasses use to be all over the house because the collection was so big, but since she recently moved she has about twenty of them in a box wrapped up in newspapers. This box is in her garage attached to the house. She hasn’t been able to find a permanent home for the ones in the box yet, so they will be there until she can find a home for them. She use to have a shelf for the current ones that she has in the house but not anymore. Now she puts them wherever she can find a place for them. She would like to someday get a display case to put them all in. She feels that the shot glasses she collects are an enjoyable thing to have, because of reminiscing about the past. She would make sure to buy the ones that have a certain thing that she wants in her collection. She likes to collect them because they are fun to look at. She hasn’t bought very many recently because the desire to add to the collection has faded slightly, but sometimes she will buy one when she goes somewhere different.

Course

Intro to Folklore, English 2210

Instructor

Lynne S. McNIEll

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G8: Objects with/of Customary Use

EAD Number

3.14

Recommended Citation

Squires, Aubrey, "Shot Glass Collection" (2017). USU Student Folklore Fieldwork. Paper 237.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/student_folklore_all/237