Nana (my infamous, delightful, powerhouse of a grandmother) is an antiques maniac. She and my grandfather lived in Europe during and after World War II, and came home with beautiful old things. When they began spending summers in Maine in the 1950s, they'd drive up and down Route 1, and my mother and uncle would swelter in the car while they bid on antique bed frames, bought more rugs than any house could ever need, and scoured shops for plates and mirrors.
Nana's house, as a result, is a museum of beautiful things, a collection of stories in furniture, paintings, and objects. Especially since, after selling both the farm in Lincolnville, Maine, and the house in Great Neck, NY where she lived with my grandfather before he died in 1997, she consolidated the best of their collection into the home where she now lives in Rockport, about 200 yards away from my family. The rest of her loot she keeps in the barn behind her house...and you better believe that when it's time to scrounge together furniture for that apartment in Cambridge, I'll be looking there first (more after the jump).
Since Nana loves antiquing so much, it's become a tradition for my mom and me to take her to the Camden Antiques Fair at the local high school. Dealers bring their wares from near and far and set up their booths in the gym. Basketball championship banners and hand written posters hang from the cinder-block walls, while beneath them, on the wooden floor that's been covered in carpeting, sit cabinets and tables, snuff boxes, jewelry, tin roosters, and watches, all waiting to be taken home and loved once again.
We took Nana this past weekend; we strolled around for a while, and Nana gave a few things her approval, and many a shrug. It was lovely to watch her pick up the objects and examine them with eyes that has seen a whole lot more than mine have. She was in her element.
I left my phone in the car, and when I went back to get it, the man at the door who had just let us in said,
"Are you three who just walked in grandmother, daughter, granddaughter?"
"Yes," I said, "we are."
"I thought so. You're very lucky."
He smiled. I smiled back, and walked into the hot gym again. I spotted my mother and Nana, looking at a little wooden box, heads bent over it as they discussed its origins and debated its merit. I watched them for a little while before joining them, smiling as I thought about what the man had said. Lucky, somehow, didn't quite seem to be the right word. I think I'd go with blessed.
Here, a few of the things I spotted and liked at the fair:
An old map of maine.
A ship in a bottle.
A box of snuff.
Model of a schooner.
And here are two postcards I bought to add to the old postcard collection I seem to have inadvertently started:
My alma mater...so I kind of had to spend the 3 bucks on it.
The back; it was sent to Belmont, MA, which is a town over from Lincoln, where I grew up.
A postcard of Rockport's own Beauchamp Point from 1907.
