A is for Antiques

April is the annual blogging A to Z Challenge, where I blog a different letter of the alphabet daily.  Click the link if you’d like to learn more about it.

I’ve decided to stick to a theme this month, and it’s going to be Things I Love.

Bench in garden, Pennsylvania
Photo Credit: Doree Weller

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time traveling with my grandparents, who sold antiques for a living.  I knew what a hatpin holder and an oyster plate while I was still in elementary school.

We would drive to dusty old flea markets in their van, and before we could sleep for the night, we had to unload all the boxes full of fragile things.  My grandfather and I would set up his tent (a metal structure with a tarp bungee corded to protect us).  My grandpa told me that people would be more likely to stop by if we had something to protect them from the rain and the sun.

We set up tables and put tablecloths over them to make them look nice.  Ink stained my fingers as we unwrapped the newspaper protecting tea sets and dolls and candlesticks and iron coin banks.

I grew up loving old things.  Whenever I walk into an old junk store and inhale the smell of dust and mustiness, I feel like I’m home again.  Going to a flea market feels like visiting an old friend.

Many of my best memories are tied up with flea markets, antiques, and my grandparents.  Things that might be old and forgotten by the time you get to them were once loved by someone.  Next time you come across an antique, don’t just wonder what it’s worth.  Instead, close your eyes… and feel the history.

Old Things and Abandoned Places

Mystery Castle, Phoenix AZ
Photo Credit: Doree Weller

“New” doesn’t really appeal to me.  I just don’t feel like new things have as much character as old.  I’m not sure why that is.  It seems to me that new is more streamlined, cleaner, and has fewer imperfections.  Things of days past had more imperfections, but were more unique.  The same is true if we’re talking about houses or cars or furniture or books or clothes.

I love thrift stores and vintage shops, jumbled with old things.  Maybe it reminds me of my grandparents; I practically grew up in flea markets, surrounded by treasures mixed with junk. I learned to appreciate the broken and the discarded, and for some reason, I find it beautiful.

In the same way, I love abandoned places.  They’re like little secrets, even if they’re accessible to everyone.  I sometimes think that they whisper things only a few of us can hear.  The reason that new places don’t talk is that they don’t have any stories to tell; they’re like young people who’ve only experienced a tiny slice of life.  Old and abandoned places and things have stories behind them, and sometimes have secrets.

On a recent trip to Mystery Castle in Phoenix, I looked around at old bottles, discarded bricks, glass pans, and other odds ‘n ends used as decor, and realized that the name “Mystery Castle” is appropriate in that the tour guides take groups around and tell the story of the place, but the walls whisper that the “stories” make up only a little bit of what the place has to tell.  It’s not abandoned; no one lives there, but tour groups go through from September to May (when it’s not hot enough to kill you… there’s no central air).  Even though it’s not abandoned, it’s like an older lady whose relatives visit only out of obligation, and when everyone is gone late at night, she sits alone with her memories.

If you hear the whispers of old things, then all this will make sense to you.  And if you don’t hear them, try to sit quietly one day and listen.  Maybe you’ll hear a whisper too.