I used to collect maple leaves. In the fall, whenever I was under a maple tree, I would pick some colorful leaves from the ground and later carefully place each in a book.

One July day, while getting ready to visit my sister Karin at Albany, I asked my roommate if she wanted anything from New York.

“Red maple leaves,” she said and laughed.

She didn’t know that I had left a box of dried maple leaves at Karin’s house.