How I Became an Antiques Dealer
or, DNA

My mother led me up the walkway, to a high set of stairs, down a dark hallway to the back of the school. It was my first day. I didn’t know there was such a thing as walking to school. Before this, I don’t recall walking to or from anywhere. I do recall a vision of entering Miss Adair’s first grade classroom at Lollar Academy, but not much more. Lollar was Hatboro’s school building, built in 1811. At that time it housed first through sixth grades. Next to it was HHHS, or Hatboro Horsham High School where the big kids were.

But now, I was five and allowed to walk to and from school. Well actually, be walked, by my big brother, Duncan. He was in fourth grade and three years older. I imagine my mother was grateful. Soon after those first school days, I was freed to walk alone. There was a main route, following sidewalks and streets. Then there was the shortcut, along Pennypack Creek across from the Old Mill and through a woods that connected to Linden Ave, the main route. Those woods were removed when Pennypack Elementary School was built. That new school was ready for me by the time I was in third grade.

One day, I brought home a few pretty stones that I found in a tiny stream bed that my path crossed. It was probably a ditch. There was seldom any water in it. My mother found me an old egg carton in the trash, just right for my rocks. You remember those egg cartons. They were made of a compressed paper material.

The big thrill came when I discovered trash day. On one or two days a week, as I walked to school, almost every house had a trash can or two out front. You recall those metal ash cans, the ones with fluted sides? Sometimes there were boxes too, full of more stuff. Those people that lived there had foolishly put perfectly good things in them, and if I didn’t take them, they would be gone by the time I walked home. The worst feeling was seeing the trash cans empty on my way home, those opportunities missed.

Very soon, I learned to be quick. As I chose my treasures, a loud voice would sometimes startle me, telling me to get out of there. There was no reasoning with them. I had to walk away. If I saw something that I just had to have, I developed a snatch and run technique. But I could not take all this stuff to school with me, so I located a couple of spots where I could hide my finds for pickup on my way home. Many times, my cache had been discovered by some lucky poacher. Or maybe my activity had been observed by the owner and returned it to its intended path towards ultimate destruction. What a waste.

For years, even after I left home to start an independent life, I had, and used, things I had picked up. Mom did not appear to mind my thrifty behavior. In fact, she seemed to foster it. So, there I was. I became a person driven by my genes that established me as an acquirer of secondhand goods.

When I became a secondhand husband and married a secondhand wife, we became antiques dealers, and our 1040 schedule C identified our business as sellers of secondhand goods. The rest is history.

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