News & Events
Mid-America
News
Show
Calendar
State Event Calendars
Regular Features
The
Antique Detective
Antique
Detective Q&A
Common Sense Antiques
Refurnished
Thoughts
Traveling with Ken
Good Eye
Books
for Collectors
Directories
& Classifieds
The
Finder: Unique Shops
Lodgings Directory
Museum Directory
Aviation Museums
Wineries in the Heartland
Classifieds
Web
Links
Archived Features
Antiquing
in Colorado
Dealer Profile Archive
Editor's
Notebook
Heirloom
Recipes
Helpful Hints
for Collectors
Is This An Antique?
Past
Cover Features
Reflecting
History
Discover Mid-America — March 2008
 |
Typing about a retail pushover
by Bruce Rodgers, Editor/Publisher
I bet not many of you can lay claim to owning part of a page. I’m talking about this space…where your eyes are right now, the space you’re skimming across. This is my world — or head, or agony or bliss — once a month, depending upon where I’m at in my busy workweek and whether or not you like what I write.
Sometimes I know exactly what I want to say, other times it’s fuzzy or blank or bleak. Yes, yes, it’s a responsibility and we all have responsibilities, but darn, sometimes I’m tired or distracted or clueless. Sorta like, shut the door, no business, lock up, go home in the shopkeeper’s world.
One the worst insults someone can level at a writer is to say it isn’t writing, “it’s typing.” That’s how I feel right now. Fingers on the keyboard, nothing registering brain-wise. .
So let me write about what I know this second. Responsibility dictates it must have something to do with antiques or collectibles or history or business, being I’m a publisher of an antique, collectibles, historic tourism publication, and in business.
Yet, I guess I could write about sports or politics or Hollywood. Funny, out of those three choices, Hollywood is what I know least about but it’s the one topic I bet most of you would gravitate toward when seeing the word on the page. (Am I proving my point?)
But we’re into antiques so let me mention that.
I don’t buy many antiques. Part of the reason is money — kid getting ready to go to college — and part of it is I don’t really know what I like and if I like something, it’s bound to be pricey. So I look. If I run across a political button I want, I generally buy it. Of course, antique political memorabilia generally isn’t a big-ticket item.
But I was in Paradise Found in Jenks, OK a couple of weeks back and saw a print on the wall. It had vertical Japanese or Chinese symbols with a fish hooked on a line at the bottom of the print. The frame was orange and fit with the colors of the fish and the black oriental characters. The price was affordable.
I immediately liked it. My brother was a fisherman, this print had a fish, I liked it and he would like it, and he had a birthday coming up…I hesitated. Impulse buying wasn’t a habit but if it overtakes me, I later feel embarrassed. So I stalled a little.
“Know the history behind this, Jerry?” I asked the shop’s owner.
“No,” he said
“Know what it says?” I asked.
“No,” Jerry said.
I pondered a minute, trying to be coy. Jerry wasn’t taken in. He knew he had me. “Do you know if it’s Chinese or Japanese?” I asked.
“Could be Japanese,” answered Jerry nonchalant.
“Okay, I’ll take it.”
I didn’t even haggle. What a pushover. And I’m glad I got it.
Bruce Rodgers can be contacted at publisher@discoverypub.com.
> Refurnished Thoughts Archive — past columns
©2000-08 Discovery Publications, Inc.