Guest Post: Why do people love antiques?

This March is special for several reasons. My mother, who has been my writing partner since I was expecting my eldest son, has a milestone birthday. As an aside, that son will turn 25 at the end of this year and just recently moved to Vancouver! And Guideposts, our publishing home for more than a decade, is officially releasing Chesapeake Antiques Mysteries, a two-book set near and dear to our hearts. The set will be available exclusively through the Guideposts website, and here is the link: 

www.shopguideposts.org/ChesapeakeSet


Over the next several weeks, you can learn more about these books, how a mother and daughter manage to write together, and our interest in antiques – as a well as what antiques mean to friends and colleagues. 

Now I’m thrilled to ‘introduce’ you to Jon Woodhams, editor at Guideposts Books, and our editor on this series as well as others – and a fellow Michigander!

Guest Post By Jon Woodhams
Editor, Guideposts Books

Why do people love antiques? Perhaps it is the thrill of the hunt. Perhaps it is the quality and craftsmanship or the classic designs found in many older items. Others enjoy them because of the sense of nostalgia, or a longing for a simpler time, that we find in these old items. And some people love antiques because they hold memories of family members or early childhood that fade as we grow older. While I love antiques for every one of the reasons above, it is often this last one that propels my search for antiques.

When I was a child, my mother’s parents lived just down the road from us outside our small Michigan town. Grandma was famous for her homemade molasses cookies, and somehow I often seemed to arrive at her house just as she pulled a batch of them from the oven of her wood-fired stove. Other times my bib-overall-clad grandpa and I would sit together in companionable silence on the spacious porch, and he would give me a fresh, soft piece of Juicy Fruit gum. The tastes of Juicy Fruit and of molasses cookies evoke a world of childhood memories.

Three of the things I loved most at my grandparents’ house were a humpback mantel clock, a stereoscope (sometimes called a stereopticon), and a Victor Victrola. (I won’t even mention Grandpa’s John Deere tractor or Grandma’s upright piano!) I delighted in its rhythmic ticking in the quiet parlor and the gentle chimes playing the stately Westminster chimes, then counting the hour. The stereoscope was an early form of View-Master, itself now an object of nostalgia for my generation, that allowed the user to view photos and engravings in eye-popping 3D. The images printed on the cards took me away to other places and other times. It was mesmerizing to study the exotic locales and peoples depicted in three dimensions.

Perhaps most intriguing to me, Grandma’s Victrola occupied an upstairs bedroom in the rambling white farmhouse. And even though we had a record player at home that I often listened to, there was something fascinating to me about the ratcheting crank, the rapidly spinning 78rpm records, and the scratchy yet vibrant tone of the records, pouring out of the opened doors on the walnut cabinet.

When I was still very young, my grandparents moved from their big old farmhouse to a newer house, just down the road. To downsize, they held a large auction that drew people from around the area. Sadly, the Victrola, along with many other items I had known, was sold to someone outside the family, and I never saw it again. The Westminster-chiming mantel clock followed my grandparents to their new home and now belongs to my Aunt Barbara. The stereoscope (along with a large selection of the 3D picture cards), I am grateful to report, later came to me, and I cherish it still.

Still, in some fashion, I must have mourned the loss of the Victrola and the clock. For when I was still a very young man, I found a clock shop where I put a Westminster-chiming clock on layaway until I had paid for it and could take it home. It was not an antique, but its sound brought back wonderful memories—and the newer-style keywound movement was far less finicky than the pendulum movement in the one my grandparents had owned. I have it to this day, nearly thirty years later.

The Victrola took longer, but I eventually purchased a similar wind-up phonograph—a Columbia Grafonola, and then later I found a Victor Orthophonic machine and brought it home—not quite a match for the one my grandparents had, but close enough. My childhood memories had again taken on a tangible and audible form, and I could enjoy them whenever I wanted to.

Over the years, I have scooped up many, many other bits of my childhood memories at antique stores from Oregon to New York, with many stops in between, and my antique obsession shows no signs of abating. So when it came time to develop a new set of books for Guideposts, it was easy for me to draw upon my genuine love of antiques as both an inspiration and an integral part of the plot. 

Chesapeake Antiques Mysteries revolves around a charming antiques store, chock full of enticing and arcane treasures from ages past. In this new Guideposts exclusive set, the antiques themselves lead our heroine and hero on a quest, just as rediscovering my grandparents’ antiques did for me. So we hope you’ll enjoy the antiques—and the charming mysteries surrounding them—in the Chesapeake Antiques Mysteries.

Holding on and on and on….

Wow.

The last time I posted a new blog it was December 2013.  At the time, my older son was working at a university in Seoul, celebrating his birthday a world away.

Tomorrow he moves to Vancouver, starting a new chapter of his life. Clichéd phrasing, but in a family of writers we forgive things like that.

When I started thinking about how to approach writing a blog after so much time had elapsed, I turned to Karin Tauscher Fuller. Not only is she a great friend, she is an award-winning columnist.

Show them what you’ve been up to, she wisely advised. Thanks to her I have photographic evidence of my activities the last year or so.

In reality, 2014 was a rough year of holding on and holding on and not letting go. My mom, and writing partner of 25 years, got seriously ill but has since recovered. The last year was…challenging. And now I’m finally back in the saddle and ready to start blogging again.

Many thanks to Karin and the family and friends who didn’t ride off into the sunset when the going got tough.

Happy Trails to all of us.

Happy 23

Happy 23rd birthday to my firstborn…

My desktop computer clock set to Korean time reads 4:20 in the morning in Seoul, where my firstborn currently resides -- meaning it’s officially his 23rd birthday. But here on the prairie it’s 1:20 on this Friday afternoon. Martina McBride croons “The Christmas Song” on an old-school CD player downstairs in my office as I struggle to put into words a whole bag of mixed emotions.
 
Chestnuts roasting segues into “What Child Is This”…what child indeed?
 
Nearly nine years after my husband and I were married, we welcomed our first child into the world on a snowy December evening in northern Arizona two-plus decades ago. Every family has its own stories, retold countless times until a fine patina coats the precious lore. With Erik, it’s the tale of his winter birth where there was even snow on the cactuses in Phoenix that year.

Fast forward to last December.

Erik graduated from college with a degree in German and a minor in English. In less than a month, he got a year-long job advising international students at the university where he’d studied abroad in Seoul. Previously he’d been to Germany twice, once in high school and once in college. 

Today was his last day on the job in Seoul. He’ll be home in mid-January for just a while before heading to Europe for new opportunities.

When he called his dad on Skype this morning, we wondered if he was contacting us to say he was taking off for Thailand to meet up with his dad’s former grad assistant – and fellow child of the world --  who is traveling there – but no. He just wanted to let us know he’d finished his last day on the job.

He looked tired…and happy.

Earlier in the week, Erik’s younger brother finished his freshman year of college. He’s “officially” a sophomore now, due to all the college credits he accrued while in high school. This child is busy making plans of his own for his future.

Back track to the day after Thanksgiving and this younger son, Andrew, was putting up the Christmas tree for me and stringing the lights. Me, the mom queen of ‘holding on and letting go,’ was nearly brought to my knees realizing in a few short years this child would be out on his own too, and I’d have to depend on my color-blind husband to figure out the complicated color-coded branches system of our not-real tree….

I preach constantly, quietly and publicly, if we parents do our job right…our children leave us. That’s the whole point.

Earlier this week a dozen or so women, including me, met to eat dinner and laugh and talk and unwind – many of whom who teach at the university here. One, new to our fold – a new mom of a son – looked exhausted from being up since three a.m. the night before but happy to be out on a night out….

Many of us are in the same book club, and we joked about that elusive parents’ ‘manual’ none of us seemed to have gotten at the births of our first or subsequent children.

Our sons and daughters don’t come with instruction manuals.

They just come with a guarantee that if we do our jobs as parents well and right and heartfelt, they will leave us.

And we will rejoice.

And weep.

Guest Post: On Italian Translations

I started this blog more than four years ago to talk about the  'holding on and letting' go of children..this is a guest blog-excerpt from her new book by my friend Jennifer Lawler, a single parent of a special needs daughter. Both of them are truly special.

This excerpt is from a collection of essays by Jennifer Lawler, Travels with Jessica. 
 
On Italian Translations

“Jessica wants to go to Italy for vacation,” I tell my friend Mary.

“Italy?” 

“I know. Maybe I can talk her into Key West or something.” 

“You would love Italy. Italians are brusque but friendly.” 

“Um, okay,” I say. Then: “Oh. You mean like me.” 

“Exactly. You’ll fit right in.” 

“Except I don’t speak Italian.” 

She waves this off. “You’ll be doing touristy stuff, right? ’Cause you’ll be with Jess. All the tourism people speak English.” 

“Right. And Jess has her . . . challenges.” 

“It’s not a third-world country,” Mary points out. “They have hospitals. Get insurance that covers emergency transportation back to the States.” 

“Sure, and I know how to say ‘she has tuberous sclerosis and a ventriculoperitoneal shunt’ in Italian.” 

Mary waves her hand again. “You know people.” 

This is true. “Hmm,” I say. I call up Randy, who does translation work for multinationals. “Do you know someone who can translate the phrase ‘ventriculoperitoneal shunt’ into Italian?” 

“Yes. Damiano. Why?” 

“Because apparently I’m going to Italy. With Jessica.” 

“With Jessica.” 

“I know. Maybe not.” 

“No, no, it’ll be fine. Italians like kids.” 

“Jess is not like other kids.” 

“She is better than other kids,” says Randy, which is why she is possibly the best friend ever. “You can reason with her.” 

“Sometimes. Sometimes you can’t reason with her.” 

“Well, sometimes we can’t reason with you. Human condition,” Randy points out. “And if you go to Italy, then you will have to fly to a big city to get there, and New York is a big city.”  New York is where Randy lives. We’ve been friends for years and have never actually met, and this would give us a chance.

“And who knows,” she adds. “Maybe you’ll meet a Paolo there. Wouldn’t you like to meet a Paolo?” 

“Yes,” I say immediately. “If Paolo is a gorgeous man who wants to have a fling with a middle-aged woman, I’m in.”

###

Jennifer Lawler is the author or coauthor of more than twenty-five nonfiction books, including the recently released second edition of Dojo Wisdom for Writers. She also writes romance under several pen names. Find out more at www.jenniferlawler.com

The Penultimate Peril

One of our favorite words around here is ‘penultimate’ – why I’m not sure. I have no recollection if my two sons and I ever got to Lemony Snicket’s The Penultimate Peril, one of a series which we read individually and occasionally collectively when they were young.

Today is my very own ‘penultimate peril.’

Friday morning my youngest son moves into the dorms here at the University of Nebraska-Kearney.  I will be absent from this event, as I was from freshman orientation, due to a doctor’s appointment. I offered, actually begged, to be allowed to attend the afternoon session. But my pitiful parental pleas fell on disinterested teenage ears. This made me absurdly proud and morbidly disappointed at the same time.

I got over it.

All-day meetings will keep college department chair husband busy and not part of the moving in experience either. Future freshman did say if I wanted to help carry stuff up seven flights of stairs to his room, I could tag along.

No thanks. There are elevators, but I have claustrophobia.

His older brother has been in Seoul since early February at his first ‘big boy job’ out of college. He’s currently making plans for his future, none of which seem to involve returning to this continent for an extended period.

I miss him like crazy, but he’s been on the go practically since his forceps delivery twenty-three years ago this December.

Son number two is only going two minutes away, as previously chronicled, but it’s not the minutes – or the miles – but the milestone.

The eldest of four siblings, I only know how to be the first to venture out into the world, the first to get married, the first (barely) to produce a grandchild. 

So with my unconventional firstborn, who practically had his permanent travelin’ bags packed before he had a driver’s license, I adapted a certain stoic stance toward parenting a child infused with wanderlust.

Now it’s time for my youngest, fiercely independent in his own ways, to leave home – even though home will be less than five minutes away. My mom has lived with us since this son, who turned 18 last week, was three. She and I know we’re going to miss him.  A lot.

Recently I read two great pieces on sending children to college, one published in a women’s magazine and one by my friend Diane Tarantini.

I miss my sons because I like them as well as love them. Sure, this one will be close by, but he’s started that journey to adulthood that no parent could possibly wish a child wouldn’t make.

So come Friday and future Fridays, Grandma and I will rattle around in the suddenly empty house – steadfastly refusing my husband’s hints we could get a puppy.  I don’t need anything to take care of now just because both sons will be out of the house.

Besides if I got a dog, it’d probably just run away, not from home, but to something.

Just like my sons.

The Empty Nest

In a few weeks my youngest son moves into a dorm at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, which is two minutes away from our house. The way I’ve been carrying on you’d think he was headed for a college campus thousands of miles away.

I’ve spent a lot of time this summer pondering why I could have been so stoic when my older son left home at 16 to be a foreign exchange student in Germany – and never looked back. He now resides in Seoul, South Korea.

Thanks to my mom, some good friends (thank you Susan and Karin) and years of lecturing parents of incoming freshmen on ‘holding on and letting go’ in a previous life as a college adviser at a big university back east, I know the answer: It’s the end of an era.

The empty nest is truly upon me. No turning back  to the days of field trips to the pumpkin patch and parent-teacher conferences.

As I was writing the above several days ago, my husband passed on e-mail about the move-in schedule for my son’s newly refurbished dormitory.  With each stroke of the keyboard, I was wracked with guilt for feeling sad when other parents have to let go in much more permanent ways.

Last week a 12-year-old boy from this closely knit community died in an accident a few towns away while visiting relatives. He and his parents attended/attend the same large church my family does, and his older brother was in my cohort of confirmation kids, although not in my small group.

The morning of his funeral, despite the good advice of my mom and my wonderful friend Karin, I went to the standing-room only service. I sought Karin’s advice because this  extraordinary mom of a teenage daughter eloquently and tenderly chronicled in her newspaper column the death of her other daughter several years ago--as a baby to a rare disease.

Through the plate glass windows behind where I sat, in the overflow seating in the narthex, I watched the sky cloud over and raindrops spatter the glass. I listened intently as our insightful minister told those assembled that “twelve-year-olds are not supposed to die” and exhorted the congregation to celebrate the deceased boy’s life. Pastor Gary read letters from the late boy’s teachers extolling his heart and kindness. He said not to seek answers where none are available, instead to celebrate this boy’s life – a kid who chose to be an organ donor in his young years.

In the overflow section, I sat by a display board extolling the boy’s elementary and middle school accomplishments. I couldn’t stop looking at the smiling pictures and the certificates honoring his exemplary achievements. Just a couple months ago, my own graduating high schooler and his friends had similar boards on display at their graduation parties. I likened the round of celebrations to cotillion season in the long-ago south. It was such a joyous time.

That rainy morning was saturated with sadness.

As the video montage of pictures of the deceased boy and his family played, I wept as did everyone else. Again, recently I’d sat in that same church with my youngest son and husband and other families at a luncheon honoring high school seniors.

I had trouble sleeping the rest of the week.

This weekend at Sunday brunch conversation at our house turned to college move-in day and activities for incoming freshmen, as well as packing and shopping. My youngest son’s enthusiasm was contagious.

I’m done mourning the end of one era and am ready to embrace the knowledge my youngest child is moving on to a new phase of his life.

Because somewhere another mother’s child is not.

I have to let go--but in a way that makes me want to fall on my knees and be grateful for the opportunity.

4th of July

It was five years ago tomorrow my husband and I walked through our new neighborhood here on the ‘prairie,’ incredulous at the firecracker carnage littering the streets. Equally amazing, by the following day the streets were pristine.

So goes life in Nebraska.

Sitting now on the deck, that same husband and I with matching laptops, I’m listening to the crackly sounds of fireworks – actually eager for darkness when we’ll quietly shoot off a few before retiring.

Previous years we’ve blown things up with friends. Tonight with a jetlagged husband recently returned from a trip to China, we’re just hanging out. I’m hopeful he’ll be alert enough to join friends and me at a showing of Jaws at the vintage theater downtown tomorrow night.

In the summer of 1975, I saw Jaws in a theater in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan on my first-ever movie date. An old dear high school friend asked me recently on Facebook how I can remember that. 

Honestly, I can’t remember anymore what day of the week it is. Chances are, though, if you ask me where I was a month ago or 40 years ago – I can tell you.

Keenly interwoven in the memories that unreel in my mind like home movies is a sense of place.

This morning while Skyping with our older son – employed in his ‘first ‘big boy’ job in Seoul, Korea, said son mentioned wanting to climb mountains there before moving on to his next adventure. Already I can’t remember the exact reference but he mentioned something about being a child of Arizona. He was born in Flagstaff, which rises 6900 feet above sea level. We moved to West Virgina when he was only two-and-a-half, but before leaving the southwest we went on one memorable hike where he climbed up and down nearly 200 steps at a national monument minutes from our home.

I was born in Michigan and lived there 20 years, spent eight-and-a-half years in Iowa, five-and-a-half in Arizona, 15 in West Virginia (where our second son was born), and now tomorrow marks five years smack dab in the middle of the country – Nebraska. The math adds up I think.

Missing every place I’ve been and embracing every place I am is what I do.

In addition to remembering – always remembering.