Up on the bridge Mark shows me the ship's balls. These are two spheres of cast iron that flank the compass. They counteract the magnetic pull of the ship's mass, forward and aft.

In an empty stateroom Mark says that when the ship gets to Finland everything inside will be trashed. The china and furniture and carpet and framed hotelish paintings. The bedspreads and sheets and towels. Mark with his two white blood cells flops down on a dusty bed. The stateroom baking hot, it's the honeymoon suite. The dust is asbestos. In a couple days, Mark will ride his huge dead ship around the world. A rusted hulk getting towed by a tugboat. Without power or fresh water. Alone with just Huey and Dewey.

Flopped there on the honeymoon bed, Mark says if I want anything I should just, you know, take it.

Instead of Mark, I take a shower curtain and a wool blanket, both of them decorated with the Monterey's crest: seven stars circling the letter M.

I slept with that blanket for years.

Unholy Relics:

The Strange Museums Not to Miss

The truth is, I'm a lot more interested in collectors than collections. From Frank Kidd, a man who had few toys as a kid but now has one of the largest collections in the world, to Stephen Oppenheim, who hung antique lights as backdrops for 1960s rock concerts and now sells them, here are nine local museums and a few of their "curators."

1. The Kidd Toy Museum

Behind every successful man, you'll find a private obsession. For James DePriest, conductor of the Oregon Symphony, it's LEGO blocks. For former Oregon governor Vic Atiyeh, it's his souvenirs from the Lewis and Clark Exposition of 1905.

For Frank Kidd—a former Air Force captain, "the original Captain Kidd," and now the owner of Parts Distributing, Inc.—it's behind a plain gray door at 1301 SE Grand Avenue.

"I didn't play golf," Frank says. "I didn't drink. And my wife didn't like me chasing women—I had to do some thing."

In 1965 he bought his first toy, a Richfield oil truck from the 1920s. It's still on display here. Along with it are cast-iron banks, stuffed bears, bicycle emblems, and other souvenirs that now add up to the world's largest private toy collection on public display.

The banks alone are staggering. Cases and cases of them, thousands, including two thousand bought from the famous Mosler Lock collection when it was auctioned in 1982. Plus pieces from the Walter Chrysler collection. The banks are each relics from a specific moment in history. It seems every historical trend or entity—battles, coronations, businesses, prejudices—is marked with a cast-iron bank. Some of them weigh up to fifteen pounds.

"I never go out after a specific toy or bank," Frank says. "It all just fatalistically jumps on my back."

The "Paddy and the Pig" banks feature a caricature of an Irishman who holds a pig. When you make a deposit, the pig kicks the coin into the man's mouth. Here are Jolly Nigger banks in their original wooden boxes. A "Freed-man" bank made just after the Civil War features a black man who takes your money, shakes his head no, and thumbs his nose at you. These days, he's worth more than $360,000. Here are banks from the 1840s and even more from the post-Civil War years of the 1860s and 1870s. Some with their Christies and Sotheby's price tags still hanging on them. "As far as mechanical banks, I've got the best collection on public display in the world," Frank says, "according to me."

He started buying in flea markets and garage sales. "Now it's gotten so competitive I don't go to either one anymore," he says. Instead, he spends as many as 137 days out of every year traveling the world to attend shows and conventions.

Looking at the rows of banks that crowd the shelves around him, Frank says, "Some of these are 'one-ofs.' A lot of these banks are worth more than all the gold coins you could cram into them." And don't miss the little German statue of a woman using a bidet. The way it works, using your body heat, is sheer genius.

The best of Frank's collection is displayed in a wood-paneled room above the parts office on the east side of Grand Avenue, at 1300, under the parts distributing, inc. sign. Elsewhere, he has pallets of toys stored, with no room to show them—just the opposite of his childhood, when he remembers having very few toys.

It took him years to get the city's permission to build his museum, but it's open Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:30.

2. Stark's Vacuum Cleaner Museum

A few blocks north of the Kidd Toy Museum, don't miss the Vacuum Cleaner Museum. Kill a rainy afternoon here at 107 NE Grand Avenue, but don't forget to wipe your damn feet.

3. Movie Madness

You want to see the knife that stabbed Vera Miles in the mouth in the movie Psycho? How about the knife that cut Drew Barrymore's throat in Scream, with the special effects "blood bag" still attached? Well, it's all here at Mike Clark's Movie Madness, 4320 SE Belmont Street. Phone: 503-234-4363.

For the more squeamish, here's Julie Andrews's orange-and-avocado dirndl from The Sound of Music. Mike Meyers's lime-green suit from Austin Powers. Natalie Wood's blue chiffon shorty dress from West Side Story. Tony Curtis's lacy ladies' hat from Some Like It Hot. Plus a rubbery "Mug-wamp" from 1992's Naked Lunch. And tons more, all on display.

4. The Portlandia Exhibit and Portland Visual Chronicle

Take the elevator or stairs to the second floor of the Portland Building at SW Fifth Avenue and Main Street. On display you'll find photos of the Portlandia statue being delivered on a barge, on October 6, 1985, then being hauled through the streets on a flatbed truck. Also on display is the huge fiberglass mold for the statue's face, modeled after the artist's wife, Sherry Kaskey. A third the size of the Statue of Liberty, the Portlandia was created by Raymond Kaskey, using the same hammered copper method.

A favorite local prank is to hang a yo-yo from its huge index finger.

In this same area look for the art collection called the "Portland Visual Chronicle." Since the 1930s, the city's been commissioning artwork that shows urban life. Drawings, photos, paintings, and prints, some of it's on display here in a rotating show that was first created in 1984.

5. The Galleries

To see more of the "Portland Visual Chronicle," PDX gallery owner Jane Beebe says to check out the BICC Gallery at the local medical school, the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center. It hosts a rotating show from the Chronicle.

Jane suggests some other local galleries where you can enjoy art without the crowds. The first Thursday of each month, the downtown galleries stay open late to unveil their new shows. The event is so popular that Jane doesn't open her own gallery because of the crush of people.

For art outside the Pearl District, she says to try the Art Gym at Marylhurst College. The Cooley Gallery at Reed College. Or the Archer Gallery at Clark College across the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington.

Jane says, "On the national level, there's a 'buzz' about the Portland art scene." She explains that the lower cost of living here has attracted a glut of quality artists from other cities. Unfortunately, the Portland "collecting base" is small, with a big resistance to high prices. This makes for a buyers' market—an overabundance of quality art at low, low prices.

If you're brave enough to gate crash, you might walk into the exclusive "First Wednesday," when Jane says the galleries make their real money. It's the day before each "First Thursday"—usually by invitation only—but few galleries will check you at the door. Really, their biggest concern might be losing their special liquor license if too many of the general public walk in. But, Jane says, "If you come, they probably won't turn you away."