My Mother and Aunt Marie use to go to the antique auctions when I was child.
After the dinner dishes were done, they would race off with a smile,
high hopes were written on their faces.
A 1920s blue glass beaded evening bag-
An oak dresser with a swivel mirror for $35-
a round wooden table,
a chair with rawhide lacing,
Grey freckled tinware,
and a trumpet were some of the won bids I can recall.
Especially the trumpet.
My Mother used it as an alarm clock, "da da ta a ta dum da ta da da ta dum!"
She would toot to wake up my four brothers and me.
The sound was startling as the morning light barely filled our rooms.
It was not the blast of the trumpet
that struck my heart for the love of finding old things.
(It is a wonder I like old things at all after that!)
It was the joy I saw on my Mother's face,
as she would come home late at night, with her arms carrying her latest acquisitions
and watching her create our home with her finds.
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