Yesterday’s Heir

Outside, the sun shone on an ordinary July day. Inside the Convention Center was an entirely different matter. A few steps took me from the present time in NWArkansas into past years and places, other times, forgotten memories. The magic carpet was an antique show.

The show was a walk-through lesson in history and geography. A wood butter churn, iron door stops, gold jewelry, flat irons, wagon wheels, all things that were important to other people in long ago times but whose only relevance now was in their antiquity.

And, I learned a lot! One vendor who travels the world in search of antiques contrasted Ireland to England. Due to the great Potato Famine, Ireland has very few antiques but what it lacks in antiques it more than makes up for in the warmth and friendliness of its people.

It’s always good to put a new wrinkle in the brain and I learned things I had never even suspected.

“What are those round brass medallions?” I asked a vendor.

“These are from miners,” she told me. “Each miner had two of these with the same number stamped on them. When they went into the mine, they left one above ground and took the other with them. In case of a cave-in, rescuers could look at the brass plates that were not picked up and determine who was still in the mine.”

Before long, the nostalgia got to me and I left. So many of the items that are valuable antiques now were a familiar part of my childhood. I guess seeing them again made me sharply aware of how many years and people were gone.

Not too many children were at the show and I wish there had been more. Walking through the booths was a hands-on history lesson. But for many of us, childhood was a long time ago and we were older than some of the items for sale.  Am I an antique little girl? Maybe. But I am glad to be an heir to yesterday.

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