A quick stroll through my
favorite Antique mall brought forth a wealth of emotion. About twenty-five years ago, I discovered the
pleasure of antique malls and antique collecting. There is something calming about wandering around in
an antique mall, surrounded by the relics of recent past.
I spy an old record album
propped up against a stand. It is set
apart from the other hundred or so albums, set aside perhaps by another veteran
like myself. Navy Music is the title of
the album. I am a Navy veteran so of
course the cover piqued my interest. I
picked up the album and read the cover.
The music brought back memories, mostly good, the bad faded away in the
wash of time. I thought about my
roommates in Scotland, Chip, and Karl, from a time long ago, over thirty-three
years ago, making my memories antiques themselves. I placed the album back where I found it, but
the memories remained, happy and sorrowful, old yet fresh.
The next booth contained two
parrot figurines. Now who had these
parrots belonged too, what kind of person went into a shop and decided they
just had to have the parrots for their house? My imagination took flight and I thought of all sorts of bird-brained
possibilities. Perhaps a child coerced
their mother or grandparent into purchasing the porcelain birds. Mayhap an actual bird fancier purchased the
beautiful statues, relishing in the beauty without the noise and upkeep. Briefly, I considered adding the lonely and
lifeless parrots to my non-collection of birds, and then thought better and
wandered to the next booth.
Furs, jackets, coats, and
stoles adorned the racks in the next cube of goods. Who wore these items? Were they rich, rich wannabes, posers, all
the stereotypes crossed my mind. What if
a PETA person found this setup, would they have a conniption fit, buy all the
furry items, and then have a bonfire. A
better ending would see the outfits bought by a local theater group. Nothing of interest here, move on sir.
The next area revealed a
shadowbox-like setting with a full arrangement of fifties furniture. The family inhabiting the chairs and sofa
were actually in my mind and not present physically. The love, anxiety, and togetherness flitted
through my thoughts until I saw the old television. The television set evoked a time when my
father and I ventured to the local drug store to use their tube tester. We tested our tubes, a time consuming process
for an impatient ten year-old and eventually discovered the bad tubes and
bought the replacements. We were so
proud of fixing the television, a source of entertainment for our entire
family.
Another exhibit contained
numerous tools, some so old that I didn’t have a clue what they did. A butter churn I could understand. A scythe was either the implement of a
harvester or the Angel of Death, neither of whom were there to demonstrate how
to use the implement. Most, if not all,
of the items have been replaced by power tools.
Our time is much too valuable to be wasted on making things by
hand. Alas, the items made by hand seem
to last decades longer than the ones made by machine.
The final booth was a
potpourri of clocks. One clock in
particular jumped out at me and spoke to me of a time past, a time when my
Father was alive, a time so long ago that the memories must be wound up on
occasion to keep them viable. A simple
Miller Lite Beer clock brought back the occasion when my Father, Brother, and I
went to the local bar when the Miller Lite Distributor was having a trivia
night with loads of prizes. A trivia
buff, I had no problem defeating the legion of bar flies, okay two or three
people, and we walked out with more items than we knew what to do with. This particular type of clock had been in my
procession for twenty some years until I gave it to the goodwill. This might have been the same clock. Regardless this clock contained my memories
and that made it a treasure.
I left the antique mall
feeling more melancholy then when I entered.
A mellow melancholy, be there such a thing, mellow because I felt both
joy and sadness. One brief trip conjured
up the memories of my Father and my two roommates from Scotland. All are deceased, yet they reside in my
heart, and my memories, and as long as I am alive, they remain among the
living.
-->
No comments:
Post a Comment