More Than Antiques?

I love history.  I love learning about people.  I love learning about things.  Naturally, I love antiques.  As they say, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. 

One of my grandfathers loved collecting other people’s castaways.  He thought everything could be repurposed and be loved.  Maybe it was remnants of having lived through the Great Depression when anything owned was valuable, maybe he was a hoarder, or maybe he just loved learning- seeing and touching things invented by someone and manufactured by others.  It might be a mixture of all three possibilities.  His mind was always curious.  My grandfather was a student of life until the day he left this world. 

Part of his passion for the past and his assigning of emotion to things lives on in me.  My house is filled with various pieces of grandparents’ furniture, vestiges of their trips, and their loved vessels from a time since passed.  But I do not own many stranger’s things. 

I love going to antique shops. 

I love shopping at garage sales. 

I often walk away empty handed.  But I love the hunt.  I love the opportunity to step into a moment of someone else’s life.  However, my family has had interesting experiences owning other people’s antiques, so I proceed with caution.

Do you ever wonder if some of the antiques out there hold more than just memories?  Has a spirit attached to the antique too?

As a child, my mother would tell the story of a time when her father (my grandfather) brought home a phonograph and three pairs of antique reading glasses in their cases.  The spectacles looked like the ones Ben Franklin made famous.  Their age was unknown, as was their origin.  My grandfather bought them from an antique store in Georgia during one of his many business trips down South in the early 1960s. 

When he brought the antiques home, my grandmother was not happy.  They made her feel uncomfortable- the spectacles in particular.  My grandfather dismissed her and her sensitivities.  But my grandmother’s intuition was not wrong.  Strange things soon began to happen. 

My aunt began seeing people on the walls.  She was around 6 years old at the time, and called them shadow people.  My aunt did not feel good when they were around. 

Shortly thereafter, my mother was lying in her bed at night getting ready to fall asleep.  Sitting on top of the tall dresser in her bedroom, my mother’s porcelain doll began to inexplicably vibrate.  Its movement created a dull tapping sound on the wood of her dresser.  Tap, tap, tap.  This went on for less than a minute and just as my mother began to sit up in bed to investigate, the doll was propelled off the dresser and flew across the room, only to crash into the opposite wall.  It hit the wall with such force that the doll was smashed to pieces.  My mother was frozen in place and felt an unhappy, menacing presence keeping her in bed.  As the dawn rose the next day, so did my mother, who ran to my grandmother crying about the transgressions of the night before. 

To quell the rising hysteria of my aunt, mother and grandmother, my grandfather agreed to get rid of the glasses and phonograph.  He removed them from the house, and all seemed to go back to normal.  My grandmother didn’t ask what he did with the antiques, as her sixth sense was no longer piqued, and the items were no longer causing mischief in the house. 

Days after the porcelain doll incident, my grandfather had to run an errand to a local store and took my mother, aunt, and uncle with him.  He piled everyone into his new Buick, and he drove to the local convenience store.  The store was at the top of the hill on a commercial block, and there were no parking spots.  He pulled up in front and left the car double parked outside.  He would only be in the store a minute or two. 

My mother was sitting in the front passenger seat and my aunt and uncle were sitting in the back.  Without any fanfare, my mother, my aunt, and uncle observed the gear slowly shift from the parked position, to reverse.  It was as if an invisible hand was moving the lever. Click, click, click. 

The children began screaming for my grandfather as he watched his parked car begin to roll backwards down the hill into oncoming traffic.  Naturally, my grandfather ran out of the store and after the car (and his panicked children) and was able to stop the car right before it careened into oncoming traffic.  My grandfather was furious and scolded my mother who tearfully defended herself.  She had not touched the gear lever.  Her siblings corroborated her story.  My grandfather was left dumbstruck.

When they arrived home drained by the day’s events, my grandfather remembered that he had put the glasses and phonograph in the trunk of the car.  When my grandmother found out what happened, she was livid.  She wanted the antiques destroyed.  She wanted them gone.  My grandfather promised to do so the next day.  But he was never afforded the opportunity.  When he awoke the next day, the car was gone, and the contents of the trunk were gone with it.  Stolen… or was it?  My family would never know. 

This of course did not curb my grandfather’s love of dumpster diving or antique shopping.  But my mom and aunt, while appreciative of the charm of an antique, are leery to take it home.  I too always have this nagging thought when shopping for antiques.  Will I take home something more than the object?  It’s a price I am not willing to pay- most of the time.

How about you?  Have you ever experienced something inexplicable in an antique store, or have the hairs stood on the back of your neck while antiquing?  I would love to know.