Antiques

My mother used to like antiques.  When we travelled somewhere, we'd sometimes stop at antique shops so she could see what they were selling.  Once we stopped at this place in upstate New York where they had a sign saying "Don't bring your garbage in here." I quipped, "They have enough junk already!"

We have some of these Hummell figurines from the 1950s, kitschy statuettes of kids skipping along and whistling and learning to read and such.  Someone wrote about them in the book The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste. I've always wondered how we got them. (A gift from a relative, perhaps?) 

One of my mother's antiques was a Japanese jewel box with a little painting superimposed on a mirror.  I wonder when she got it?  It was probably from before World War II.

Some years back I started buying up old Classics Illustrated comic books.  I lost interest eventually, but not before getting quite a few I didn't read at the time.  Last week I took them out of their storage place and started reading them. (I've read A Tale of Two Cities and Les Miserables, and Rip Van Winkle is next.) I also have quite a few Classics Illustrated Junior fairy tale comics.  They're something of a guilty pleasure for me.