Finding my Childhood in an Antique Store!

This weekend was the Beer Cheese Festival in Winchester Kentucky.  If you are like me, until I moved here six years ago, I had never heard of beer cheese.  After I moved here I wasn’t game to try it for several years. Then I found a garlic beer cheese and I broke down and gave it a try. It was great with salty crackers. So each year we go down to the main street and walk up and down the historic district wandering in and out of antique shops, boutiques, and gift stores.

We had wandered into a little shop really close to the courthouse and that’s when history started calling to me.  There on the top shelf was a doll house I had when I was a child. Complete with designed nursery walls, wallpapered kitchen, built in fireplace, and the wobbly tin frame. Want to see what I am talking about?  Take a look!  Modern 60’s family home made from tin.

Want to see what I am talking about?  Take a look!  Modern 60’s family home made from tin.

 

 

After finding the house, what else did I find in that same antique shop? The little stove and refrigerator my sister and I played with as very young children.  These appliances kept us busy for hours and we even had a little sink that went with the set.

As we leave that one antique store, I figure I am finished with my leisurely stroll down memory lane, but I found that not to be the case.  We only went two shops down and once again, I was confronted with memories of New Year’s Eve, birthday parties and summers on the farm with my grandparents.  Ten to one, my baby brother had the ship or the truck.  I know he had a metal pedal car. He wrecked it really badly one time careening down a hill.  I went racing up the hill and told my mother, “Ray’s head is all gunky.”  She almost fainted when she saw him and his road rashed face.

Metal noisemakers and toys anyone?

Angie, my daughter and I were given a few looks when I picked up the bell noisemaker and clanked it a few times.  Oh, the feels were strong on hearing that metallic ring.

 

Wandering over to the other side of the shop, Angie says, “Hey, I used to play with one of these at Aunt Cheryl’s house.”  We were really going old with these next two toys. They were items my grandparents collected and we cherished.  We are out of the tin and aluminum age, we are going back to the iron age. Meet the iron toys!

The stove with its little iron skillets and pots are no doubt still at my sister’s house entertaining her grandchildren just as they entertained my daughter and her children 30 years ago.  The ice wagon, however, resided in my house. In fact, the one we had, contained two little children peeking out the back end of the wagon.  We called them Hansel and Gretel because of her long braids.

To finish the afternoon of my antique childhood, we jumped to the mid-seventies and I was able to wow my grandson with the modern and brand new technology which allowed me to learn to type at the speed of sound. (I am including all the backspacing and erasing in the speed tests.) My thoroughly technologically groundbreaking machine.  The IBM electric typewriter with the ball strike and the ink cartridges.

I left the festival a little grayer, a little more droop to my step, and a little embarrassed that I am older than the invention of the computer.  Oh, yes! That was mentioned.

I might bemoan and joke about the antiques of my youth, but it was so nice to find these little living memories and share them with the family.  I know that one day, they will be strolling into an antique shop and will say, “Hey! I remember having one of these!”  It brings the long lost kid to the surface, to take a peek at what made them so happy such a long time ago.