Do you know where babies come from? I do. I know where babies come from because when I was younger, my mother told me; she told me in a very tactful, very evasive sentence or two, adorned in the vernacular of the birds, the bees and things left very much unsaid. Perhaps this is the starting point for my insatiable curiosity to know the point of origin of everything-from the macrocosms of the universe and black holes and star systems to the tiniest thing-a dandelion, a caterpillar, a little towheaded toddler. I've been nosing around in things from the very beginning, getting my veritable Nancy Drew on: taking apart radios to tear up their innards; smooshing up green peas (they're neon on the inside) during dinnertime; looking things up, first in the dictionary and then in the encyclopedia and now on the Internet, trying to figure out what things were, what made them tick, and most of all, where on earth they came from (yes, I eventually figured out the great mystery of babies, too).

Walking into the Salvation Army, located in downtown Amherst behind the post office and the Mobil station, I often find myself eclipsed by the same sort of curiosity that first washed over me back when my mother was lying to me through her teeth. A true thrift store and charity outfit, the Salvation Army has served the disadvantaged public, resource-conscious shoppers, pennypinchers and the educated indie-cred masses for years. It alternately offers an astounding selection of cheap wares, fun objects and the elusive yet quite real promise of the diamonds in the rough-the proverbial Loch Ness Monster of all thrift operations-the perfect find.

My perfect find, as you may have guessed from my exposition, is something with a history (certainly not a stretch at a second-hand store). A good history. It doesn't have to be a true history, necessarily-obviously, I can't possibly talk to many or most or any, really, of the store's contributors about where these things came from, who loved them, what they were used for, who spilled coffee on them and who clutched them close at night as they fell asleep. I will often spend hours stationed in the aisles, postulating the whos and whats and wheres and whys-fictionalizing and wondering and laughing to myself at the camp, inanity and the uniqueness of it all. "Someone's grandmother made this," I'll decide, twirling a knit cap by the ridiculously colorful ball of yarn jutting forth from its apex.

I have no explanation for the hat with the Styrofoam shark protruding from its front.

There's certainly no shortage of categories within which one could dig up something great-the store-space is fairly sizeable, and throughout you can find racks of shoes, t-shirts, pants, outerwear, maternity wear, evening wear, accessories, toys, board and video games, dishes, various goblets and glasses, bowling balls, skis, sports gear-basically all of the miscellany you could ever possibly need (and probably all of the stuff that you don't as well).

Arty obsessions and attachments to vicarious pasts aside, the Salvation Army furthermore never fails to amaze me with the degree of the warm fuzzies that wind up coursing through my veins nearly every time I visit. It is discouraging to live in such a disposable society as ours today. It is easy to get down at the fact that you can (and will) throw almost anything away just because you can, because you, by some serendipitous turn of fate don't have to fathom what it's like to recycle or reuse or take any pride in the history of materials. But deep within the musty racks of sweaters and crazy kids' toys, between the shoes and the handbags, underneath the dusty LPs and cracked cassette players and couches sold as-is lies heartening evidence that the idea that one person's trash could very well be another's treasure can be as pragmatic as it is idealistic.

"This coat," a shaggy-haired, bearded patron of about 40 began to proclaim to himself as I was ogling sports jackets of 1970's Olympians and outdated lesbian gym teachers galore, "is beautiful." It looked more like a Yeti than it did a coat-and was certainly nothing that I'd be caught dead wearing-but it was large, it was in charge and it was glorious indeed.

The Salvation Army is open from 10 to 7 on Mondays and Tuesdays, 9 to 7 on Wednesday through Saturday, and is closed on Sunday. Donations can easily be made in the form of your old stuff or your money (right down to your loose change) directly to the store. You're probably not going to find out where babies come from if you head over there, but I can almost guarantee you you'll walk away with something interesting.