‘Check under that old mink coat’
And then one day you wake up, look around and say “Where did all the antique stores go?”
Followup questions: 1) So, what’s everybody doing, furnishing their homes from Ikea? and 2) Did I miss the Simple Living Workshop where we all learned how to make desks, sofas and steamer trunks from dried hemp stems?
No, and No.
But for whatever reasons Ukiah’s antiques stores have disappeared, and it’s a worrisome trend. Couple it with the fact local bars, taverns, saloons and other venues of social camaraderie have vanished in the past 20 years, and it’s beyond troubling.
What’s next? The bowling alley? The skating rink?
Why didn’t anyone notify me shops selling old stuff were disappearing? Now there’s nowhere to get back copies of Life Magazine, flashy sets of cufflinks or a nice purple and gold Ukiah High jacket with cream-colored leather sleeves and “Biff” embroidered on the chest.
Where can I find an old wooden tennis racket or a neon ‘Lucky Lager’ sign? How about an oil painting of Mount Rushmore done by an amateur Yorkville artist who died in 1950? A penny Gumball Machine? Not Costco.
There are approximately zero antique stores in the Ukiah Valley, and a few weeks ago there were a dozen. Well, five anyway.
Antique shops are musty and dusty and smell like grandma’s attic. A great antique store, and Hopland once had a pair of ‘em side-by-side, is one in which you don’t know precisely what you’re looking for and the owner can’t say for sure she’s got one anyway. If she does, it’ll be under that old mink coat in the corner.
And then you find it and you’re not sure you really want an old waffle iron / catcher’s mask / collection of Pez dispensers.
Ukiah once had shops specializing stuffed with vintage goods but if there’s one left it must be in somebody’s garage. Redwood Valley had that nice spread near the ramp to Highway 20 behind Taylor’s Tavern. It specialized in appliances, many refurbished, and it’s where we bought our 1930s double-oven O’keefe & Merritt gas range.
Now I think they’re selling boats.
At The Forks the immortal Red’s Antiques was a couple hundred feet past the Market and famous for doors. Red’s had scores of doors, maybe hundreds, lined up like dominoes inside and outside the shop.
Then there was Blacklock’s on Highway 101. Blacklock’s was the Empress, the two-story Disneyland quonset hut filled with jewelry in glass cases, Oriental rugs, matching sets of old, well-made furniture, clothing, clocks, guns and toys.
Is that stuff all on ebay now? I weep.
The only places left in existence that might qualify as antique stores is the tidy clean and well-lit consignment shop in the old Ace hardware building at the north end of Hopland, and Fabulous Finds, a small shop just past Blacklock’s. Fabulous Finds is full of home furnishings that belong in a Sunset Magazine spread; it’s the antithesis of fusty, musty and dilapidated. You’ll want to wipe your feet and comb your hair before going inside.
Our loss of antique shops is a particularly devastating blow to Baby Boomers, who are old and have spent their lives collecting valuable stuff nobody wants. Not even their children, nieces or nephews will take their scrapbooks, framed Peter Maxx prints, National Geographics, hundreds of old science fiction paperbacks or a daughter’s Cabbage Patch doll hidden in the garage 40 years ago.
You could put a FREE sign in your front yard offering boxes of VHS tapes, lovely China teacups and dessert plates, genuine sterling silverware, handmade quilts, electric trains and Barbie Doll collections. All would sit, untouched, come the rains next November.
No one wants your grandfather clock and no one wants your high school yearbook. Nobody wants a ’58 Chevy Delray except Alex Tsarnas, but unfortunately his old wrecking yard disappeared around the time the Samoa Club shut down.
Items your children might be willing to take would be your stamp collection, coin collection, and your set of Topps baseball cards, 1951 through 1980. Mostly that’s because it’s the junk easiest to carry home in the trunk of a car, and will sell fastest online.
You don’t have many other options. You can try depositing vinyl record albums into the grave along with the casket but the Eversoles probably won’t be tricked. They’ve seen it before.
Or stuff everything into your garage and set fire to the whole mess. It’s pretty much foolproof, but don’t tell the cops you got the idea from me, and don’t tell Jared Hull, my insurance guy, either.
I’m planning on burning down my own junk-filled garage, filled with valuable collectibles, and I want to surprise him.