The Older I Get......

The older I get (64), the more that I seem to love the objects of my childhood.......which are, of course, now antiques.  Tops, marbles, yo-yos, and a long jump rope take me back to the days when I was growing up in Normangee, Texas and we had recess twice a day at school and we pretty much did whatever we wanted to.  There were swings and see-saws which today would be considered much too dangerous to have on a playground.  The playing surface was hard packed dirt and after a good rain there were wonderful mud puddles under the swings that many an adverturesome boy fell into.  There wasn't a school nurse to call his parents to bring him clean clothes either.  If someone rode their horse to school that day, the horse would be tethered to the bleachers by the football field.  Well, back to antiques.
The desks I sat in during elementary school are cherished antiques now, as are the globes and maps and pictures of George Washington and Abe Lincoln.  I hated to sit behind a wiggly boy because it would make the writing surface of my desk shake and mess up my perfect penmanship......which is an antique word as well.
We had soda machines at my school and I remember when cokes went from a nickel to 6 cents.  Now that's when a penny was important!
My school had a milk break in the morning around ten o'clock and I always bought a chocolate milk.....they were 3 cents.  God, I sound old.
Well, it is good to see so many of the younger generation love antiques.  I just bought a dainty little fork and spoon for a family friend that is 10.  She has alwas admired a collection of spoons hanging on the wall and wants to eat with one.  So I bought her a set to take home and I taught her the word antique.  Let's see where that takes her.
On April 20 (Saturday) the Antique Gallery of Houston will be holding an appraisal fair from noon until 4:00 P.M.  This is your opportunity to ask the experts at our gallery.  So you are invited to bring in the piece of jewelry or painting that you've been wondering about.  The fee is only three dollars for one item and $5.00 for two items.  It's a lot of fun just to see what everyone shows up with.  I'm going to try to stump the experts with a little painting that was given to me.  It was painted about 75 years ago by a "street" painter who lived on Washington Avenue.  He was a little old man who sold his paintings from house to house to have money to eat on so, of course, everyone in the neighborhood had more than one piece of his art work.  He used whatever he could find as his canvas.  I've always wondered what it was worth! 

NEW BLOGGER ON BOARD

My name is Johnine McDowell (d.b.a.  Annie Dragonfly).  I have been a dealer at the Antique Gallery in Spring since July, 2011 and a blogger for about the same amount of time.  Normally, however, I blog about rescuing animals.  I didn't give too much thought to antiques, either, until I retired from teaching and found that when one is accustomed to working 50-60 hours a week you just aren't well-suited to "relaxing".  So I tried substitute teaching, tutoring, traveling, reading, etc., etc., etc.......but none of that really fit into my desire to be creative, to teach, and to learn new ideas myself.  About that time I inherited some lovely pieces of crystal, silver, china and collectibles.  Although I could appreciate the beauty of all those things, I was not really anxious to own any of those things myself.  So as I did a little research on the value of what I had,  I began to fall in love with other kinds of antiques such as photography, paintings, fabric, and furniture.  I began to buy a few little things that I liked and soon the hobby became an obsession (fabric) and the obsession became a new career.  I didn't like just to read about antiques or look at pictures of antiques.  I wanted to dig through old boxes and photo albums.  I wanted to catch as many estate sales in a week as I could.  I scoured the resale shops.  I drove to estate auctions in bluebonnet country.  My friends and relatives began to offer me all of their junk.  My sister tells everyone that if I buy anymore "stuff" then I will soon have to live in a tent in the backyard.  That's not true, however!  I have an RV that I could move in to.
So that's my story.  In the weeks to come I hope to share the stories of how other dealers at the Gallery came to be where they are today.  I hope that by reading this that you will want to come to meet us in person or that you will recognize the "obsession" in yourself and embrace it as we have.
And would you believe that same sister who commented about me moving into a tent......that same sister sent me home with a rocking chair in my back seat when I visited her at Easter!!!