Thanks For the Memories

摘要

There are so many people who need our help," says Rhonda L. Anderson, to the cheers of some 4,000 women. These are the assembled faithful, salespeople from across America for an outfit called Creative Memories, who gathered for three days in August at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Anderson, the 47-year-old cofounder of the company, is a former missionary to Indonesia. The help she's alluding to isn't spiritual; it's commercial—with an emotional edge. These women are celebrating the hugely successful fad of "scrapbooking," a hobby that involves putting family photos into albums, along with written reminis- cences and artifacts—die-cut shapes, stick-ers, clip art, cloth swatches, doilies, buttons, ticket stubs, fallen leaves, report cards, memorabilia, kids' drawings, whatever. No event is too trivial to escape being fixed by croppers, as scrapbooking enthusiasts are known: weddings, christenings and bar mitzvahs, of course, but also first days of preschool and teddy-bear parties.