My Mom Looked for Baubles and Trinkets

    She did a lot more than that with her 73 plus years. She worked and toiled, relaxed and recreated, played and laughed, bought and sold, had her share of triumphs and defeats, and sadnesses. She was able to travel a bit, serve a bit as a nurse, vaccinating people who would live longer, marrying, having children, doing pro bono stuff, making money as a worker of various types...

    Like so many of us, we all pass through these things. As a woman, she accomplished some neat feats. Or, man or woman, she did some nice things, even abroad. 

    Men, women, and children all over the world live like her. Some people create things, some craft treasures and decorations. Others write tracts or programs. Many creative people leave legacies which are larger than themselves. Hitler wrote a book, received popular support, and then went on to commit one the most awful human and physical atrocities of all time. This Holocaust and World War still have reverberations today in 2024, as the Israeli Jews are striking back wickedly against the barbaric attackers of October 7 (last year, 2023), but unfortunately sweeping up hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with them. This incites a lot of pain and perpetual loss and hate.

    Mein Kampf, indeed. My struggle. Our struggle. We all are figuring out our legacies; what we leave behind. Some are better or worse than others. Some left mostly goodness in their wakes, although most of our wakes are smaller ripples in smaller streams and rivulets. Even great ocean waves and tsunamis that wreak havoc upon cities and coasts, also go on in the forgetfulness of the vagaries (third time to use in my blog since 2014!) of human life and history.

    My mom at one point, maybe in the mid 2000s, or the aughts, procured an authentic copy of Hitler's tome, hand signed by a Colonel in the time of the Wehrmacht, which is the Bundeswehr today, and then through e-bay sold it, maybe for two hundred dollars, plus the six- or eight-dollar surcharge that the sale produced. The purchaser was in France, but it turns out the sale of Mein Kampf was illegal in France, so e-Bay found out and cancelled the sale. A message to my mom more or less said: this transaction did not take place. They took away the surcharge, returning her money credit, and the book was gone to Europe. Money made.

    Maybe my mom got it at a garage sale of some home spun Hoosier?

    My mom went a few backwoods and low brow places. She could be very normal and common.

    But unlike a lot of people, she went after treasures of the world called antiques, a good part of the time. Ten years? Twelve years? More. It is something else, perhaps another breed, those that seek after the sometimes shiny or rusted little things of the world, or some bigger pieces like furniture or ceramic or other crafted plates and containers.

    Bracelets, rings, earrings, little figurines. Art from paintings to sculptures and other items, metal or wooden or glass. All kinds of things that get hidden in drawers, backroom closets, attics, garages and sheds... Basements and forgotten places. My mom would find these things, and resell them.

    Recirculate. Distribute. Compare and contrast. Market.

    That is a big thing that she concentrated her efforts on. Other peoples' handiworks. There was an old woman down in southern Indiana that she gathered art from. Lois Done? I cannot recall...

    She had lots of friends and buddies. She found an interest in any yard sale or garage, or antique mall.

     In southern California I met people and students that work enthused by the Flea Market. I and my family and friends, through marriage and work and church, did more foraging there.

    But, yeah, that was a big part of what she did.

    Some people live for those kinds of things. People from all over have: China, India, Africa, the Americas...

    And we marvel at the craftsmanship and sheer enormity of it all.