Antiquing (or Shopping for Antiques)

Anna and I have one strong passion that we share. We both really enjoy shopping for antiques. Some people really have no idea what the attraction is, but in some ways for us, it is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon perusing the things that were useful in yester-years, and in some cases we can add to some of the things we like to collect. Anna likes to collect salt and pepper shakers, and, in a never ending effort to replicate my childhood, I like to collect Anchor Hocking Wexford glassware. We now own much more Anchor Hocking Wexford glassware than our family ever had when I was a child, but that doesn't matter, I like the pattern, Anchor Hocking doesn't make it anymore, so it is therefore collectible, and so I collect it. That is enough justification for me.

We have also managed to collect Royal's Colonial Homestead pattern of dishes, only because Anna's mother gave her Anna's great-grandmother's platter from that collection and one day we found a whole bunch of dishes in that pattern at a thrift store, so since we already had the platter we decided to get that set. It is not the most desirable pattern that Royal ever put out, but we like it, and we have a lot of it, so we keep it around. Every now and then we find a piece we don't have yet, so we add it to our collection.

All of this is prelude to the point of this post. You see, the common denominator in all of our collecting up to this point is that everything we collect is small. Being still in seminary, and knowing that as a seminary student I have to move a lot, we have disciplined ourselves to collect small things that pack easily so that we don't have to concern ourselves with being over-burdened with excess furniture. Not to say that we don't have any antique furniture, we do. We have Anna's grandma's old sewing machine and her rocking chair, Her great-grandfather's trunk and oak sleigh bed with matching dresser and chest of drawers, and of course I have been packing my old radio around with me for years. But up until now, we have not purchased any large antique furniture together. We did purchase a small end-table from a second hand store, and we purchased a platform bed that I turned into a console table, and in Stillwater we found a nice book rack that stores all of Anna's transcription books, but we had not purchased any nice, old every day furniture from an antique store, ever.

That changed today. You see, about a month ago I attended a pastor's conference at a church near Lamberton. After the conference I needed to get to the store so I could purchase some refreshments for my internship committee that was meeting that night. While I was in town I noticed there was an antique store just a block down the street from the grocery store, so I went inside to see if it would be something that Anna and I would enjoy exploring together sometime. When I perused the store initially I noticed there were a significant number of dealers that sold salt and pepper shakers, so I told Anna when I got home that I thought it would be fun to check out that antique store sometime. Anna had an appointment in Slayton today and after that we had lunch at our favorite little cafe there. Over lunch Anna said she wasn't really interested in going home right away, so I suggested that maybe this would be a good day to explore that antique store in Lamberton. Well, she said that sounded good, so off we went.

Sure enough, there were lots of salt and pepper shakers around, just like I had remembered it, but as we wandered around the store, Anna's eyes fell upon this wonderful old mission-style oak rocker. It had a padded seat, but the rest of it was solid oak. Anna sat in it and discovered that the old rocker was extremely comfortable, so she had me sit in it and try it out so she could ask me what I thought. I have to admit, it is a very comfortable rocker, but I reminded Anna that we had driven our Subaru to the town today, and I was doubtful that the rocker would fit into it. We fussed and fumed for the longest time, but finally we gave in and bought it. Sure enough, there was no way it was going home in that Subaru! We asked the store clerk if they could store it for us until we could get back to town again in a couple of weeks, and she readily agreed.

On the way home, the more we thought about it, the more we wanted to get our new toy so we could play with it! We knew it would fit into our station wagon, and we also knew that the store was open until 5, and it was only 3, so if we hustled we could get home, pick up the Ford, gas it up and make it back to Lamberton before the store closed. We decided to go for it! We made the mad dash back to Lamberton and got there by 4:30. Plenty of time to pick up our new treasure and head back home. Now it sits in our sitting room, proud as can be, and we will get to enjoy it someday, if we can get Jasper out of it. Ahh, antique shopping is so much fun! Blogged by Don