Tales From Exit 22 by Al Batt

I was eating something from the antique food group (leftovers) while wearing antique clothes (vintage) and fiddling with my cellphone (insanity).

A whippersnapper looked at my phone and said with words dripping in pity, “I haven’t seen an antique dinosaur like that for years.”

Antique dinosaur? One of those words would have been cruel enough. I could have protested, claiming that I was an antique, too, but I feared he’d have told me, “You’re too old to be an antique.“

I wondered if I could find a junkman handling cellphones.

The junkman (rag-and-bone man) was a familiar figure during my formative years. He was a junk collector who found utility and profit in trash. He recycled junk into treasures or sometimes into more junk. He spread his unsightly inventory over property at the edge of a town. Be it ever so humble, it was his home.

He left his supplies scattered about so he’d always be able to find something whether it was the something he was looking for or not. He didn’t concentrate his collecting in one area. He gathered everything but tattoos to sell.

The junkman was fond of saying things like this to customers, “Those are $1 apiece or two for $5.”

And this, “Could you see if there is a new pipe wrench in your machine shed?”

“Sure, did you leave one there?” asked a naive soul.

“No, but I sure could use one.”

Most every junkman had a reputation as a skinflint, whether justified or not. One that I knew was said to have spent two weeks vacationing in Norway and upon his return home, he still had Minnesota air in his wallet.

A junkman’s shabby yard was where nothing was free except a snarl from a dog. Most every junkman had a faithful canine companion as mean as a junkyard dog should be. The secret was to avoid making eye contact with the mutt by running away from it as fast as possible.

The old junkman has become an antique dealer, someone who corrals stuff that has reached a certain maturity and someone who buys junk and sells antiques. A friend is an antique collector. He said he is an antique. Many antique collectors are.

I’ve watched parades featuring antique tractors and visited classic car shows where I was afraid to breathe on a car. I’d driven some of those. Each of those wheeled contraptions seemed too young to be antiques. How do you know when something is an antique? Is it because it’s old or because it’s called old? If someone introduced you as an old friend, are you an antique?

The business was named Ole Piper. I pronounced it as Ole of Sven and Ole or Ole and Lena fame. I figured it was named after some guy named Ole Piper. After all, it was located in Minnesota. I learned it was pronounced as “Ol’” as a contraction of old.

Olde is another word indicating some age and is usually preceded by “ye” as in Ye Olde Junk Shoppe.

My father loved junk. Not antiques. Junk. It was emotional support junk. He knew that money couldn’t buy happiness, but a little money could buy junk. He picked up oddball items at auctions. He specialized in things that no one wanted or could identify. These acquisitions caused my mother to roll her eyes. One man’s (woman’s) junk is another man’s treasure. Dad dragged his new possessions home and tossed them onto a pile. My father’s filing system was a piling system. Despite the appearance of disarray, Dad could find things. He said that if anyone should happen to know what a piece was and needed it, they’d have to pay him a pretty penny to get it. That was Dad’s get-rich-quick scheme. And it worked, except for the rich and the quick parts.

Nearly everyone collects junk food, but why do we like old things Grandma owned and Mom threw out? In my case, it may be because the Wizard of Oz hasn’t called to tell me that my brain is ready. There is the historical intrigue. They make us feel like young things and help us recall the good old days. The best parts of the good old days were that we weren’t old or all that good.

Being an antique little boy has taught me that old is good and I can’t teach an antique new tricks.

The most important thing I’ve learned is that the most valuable antiques are old friends and wise elders.

Al Batt’s columns appear every Saturday and Wednesday.