Antiques - The Crab Chronicles

I have learned, from my own experience, that those of us who love history love it, in some part, because it's safe. It's done. It's over.

We can look back at those times, always with our own individual perspectives and prejudices, and view things this way and that, like turning a prism in a light, but history usually doesn't hurt us in any way. It can, in fact, awaken a longing in us for the past, for a time when values were different, and manners, and we were the same kinds of people, and yet utterly different.

We watched a movie the other night that was made in about 1990, and nobody was using a home computer or a cell phone or iPod. I watched it thinking, oh yes, I remember that time well, and yet it seems so quaint. You want to connect with someone you either meet in person or pick up the phone. You didn't text or Tweet or Skype. I miss those days.

I find myself poring over old photos sometimes, searching the faces of my grandparents and my cousins, trying to see... what? I don't know. I just feel a connection, even though the photos were made before I was born.

This is my grandmother, Cordelia, who I was named for ["Dee" is a diminutive version] and who died before I was born. I have curly reddish brown hair like her. Mom says I giggle just like her. And yet, I was nowhere around when she was alive. Mother was pregnant with Bruce when she died in 1959. The cute toddler with her there, though, is my cousin Tono, and he has always been a presence in my life, more like a beloved brother than merely a first cousin. I feel a connection with her through him. He inherited her long legs, and surely other attributes.

This is Lewis, Cordelia's son and Tono's father, in World War II.I loved Lewis very much. We are blessed to have many of his paintings in our house.

This is a recent photo of Tony/Tono [Tono is a family nickname and nobody calls him that any more] and my son Michael.

Michael and I went to run errands yesterday afternoon, after the rainstorms had passed, and we found ourselves in downtown Tucker, where they were having a street fair. The main attraction - antique or old cars. Michael loves old cars.

I have always wondered why, and yesterday he shared a memory of his life in Kazakhstan that gave me a clue. He rarely talks about those days. Of course, he was 8 years old when he went to the orphanage and left behind his family. He remembered riding in an old car with a kind family friend, and the memory of that lady [who might have been a relative] is a happy one. We're talking about a little boy who rarely EVER got to ride in a car. He lived in a small village near the Russian border where there is snow 9 months of the year, and few poor people own cars or even learn to drive.

I am not all that crazy about old cars, but we got out and walked around, and it occurred to me that I want to nurture this love of old cars in him. He kept saying over and over, "Why don't they make cars like this any more? Why are today's cars so stupid?" Of course, I had no answer. I lamely said, "Well now, safety is a big concern, I think..."

Maybe what he really feels is a connection to those long ago car rides in Kazakhstan, where he felt loved and free, away from alcoholism and hospitals and hunger. Maybe that is what old cars re-invoke in him, a sense of beauty, and possibility. Maybe it's kind of similar to the way old photos affect me.

There is mystery, and adventure, and a connection to a larger world.

This is rather similar to the first car I ever drove, a 1968 Plymouth Fury.

This looks like a car my grandmother Cordelia drove.Michael loved it.

In so many photos, people pose beside their cars. I guess there used to be a lot of pride of ownership.

This is similar to the 1950's cars my mom learned to drive on. Ironic that it's parked in front of a shop with my name..

I don't have any particularly profound insights to share here, just some thoughts about loving the past, and representations of it that we can touch now.

Source: http://deescribbler.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/09/antiques.html

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