Pet rocks, etc.

Thudfactor is posting about pet rocks, and I have to agree with him that the Mike Huckabee Guitar Hero thread is dumber. After all, I have a couple of pet rocks.
I did not get rocks with papers of authenticity. I just picked up one or two that were hanging around, the same way I get pet cats. I only have 3 or 4 (rocks, that is), and they are mostly too small to serve any practical purpose like a paper weight or a door-stop. But they call to mind a time and place and have a sort of history. I think they are more authentically rocks without the papers, since having the pedigree behind them would make them sort of a “product.” My pet rocks are real rocks, picked out of a tide pool or some such place, and adopted.
I remember coming across Missouri in the early 70’s and seeing a display of rocks for sale. The enterprising natives had constructed shelves out of 1×12 lumber and cinder blocks and hand-lettered a sign, “Genuine Rocks from the Ozarks.” The rocks on the shelves were the same as the rocks on the ground, but those folks were doing a brisk business. I have a bit of jade from Jade Cove in California, and I picked up a small cobblestone left on the side after street repairs in Berlin.
I have a section of brick that John picked up when he was first learning the alphabet and kept with him for a while, calling it the “I rock.” Then there is the rock that Carl picked up on the golf course because it was shaped like a shoe. He carried it home and painted it to look like a shoe. It became part of the American Bicentennial art exhibit at Berlin?s Rathouse Templehof in 1976.
I somewhat regret that I do not have a genuine rock from the Ozarks.