Back Home

At 5:45 yesterday afternoon I climbed behind the wheel of my Toyota, worn down to a nub, ready for the journey north and east from rural Fayette County to equally rural Leon County. Behind me friend Jim pulled his cargo trailer carrying most of the remains from my booth at the Round Top Antiques Fair. The back of my 4Runner was loaded as well. It had been a draining six-day run. Our show—the original, the one from which tens of others have sprouted since 1968—had been a success for me, although on the low end of what I’ve learned over the years constitutes success. I was still on my feet, modestly rewarded, nothing broken, and nothing stolen that I know of, and I had the luxury of a good friend who had graciously offered to help me get there and back, set up and take down my booth, and though I paid him a respectable amount for his back, van and cargo trailer, dollars don’t really matter all that much when you consider the other choices by which an important end might be accomplished.

As we sat in my garden around 7:30 in the evening, sipping Early Times on the rocks with a splash, listening to the evening sounds, feasting on the visual results of spring that had become much more present in my absence, I gave thanks for arriving back home safely and with a lot more in my pocket than I had six days ago. Though the work had to continue the next day—unloading the trailer, van and Toyota—the unburdening of being back home with something worthy and worthwhile accomplished was palpable.

Inside the barn house leftover chili and beans thawing from the freezer promised a welcoming meal, complemented by a nice chunk of mild cheddar cheese and crackers. No royalty could have felt more blessed than I felt as later we sat upstairs in the loft, watching easy-on-the-mind programming on Home and Garden Television, ceiling fans stirring a sweet breeze, doing their work from the large pine beams of the 50-foot expanse of what used to be the hayloft. Home, yes, and I was reminded of how I feel about this place and the collected evidence of my life’s passion as we sat downstairs drinking coffee this morning. If love of old things is a punishable crime, I stand guilty. As we entered the front door last night, into a house filled with old wood that had been locked tight for the better part of a week, I breathed deeply, acknowledging and luxuriating in the rich fragrance that time (only time can) brings to the treasure that has called me for more than four decades.

Over the four days of our show I was reminded that true love of old treasure is indeed a gift—even though this treasure can be burdensome when it owns you. As thousands of people poured down the aisles of the large exhibit hall that houses the Round Top Antiques Fair, I was reminded that we who truly know the exquisiteness of old things constitute a small minority. A slight woman—recovering from cancer—from a nearby town loved and bought a pair of walking sticks whose steel heads were ornately decorated with stars and shields and the provenance, “LaGrange Texas July 1892”. A few days earlier another woman wanted the entire collection of embroidered pine needle baskets from the Alabama Coushatta Indians in Woodville Texas. An older guy, although a native Texan, for many years a resident of the Alabama Gulf Coast, couldn’t walk away from a small table with a drawer. The underside of the table lid was inscribed “August Hahn 10 April 1878 Harwood Texas”. And there were others. I, who pride myself on knowing at least some part of the story behind the things I collect and offer for sale, revel in the journey. Engaging in commerce on the Internet, a past time that has grown in popularity over the last couple of decades, doesn’t work for me. Collecting is all about the journey—where I went, who I met along the way, and the unexpected treasure that had someone asked me in advance what I hoped to find, well, I couldn’t have answered that question.

Wherever I call home, I am bound to treasure—be it a table lovingly crafted and signed or the anonymous work of someone whose name is lost to history. And I am bound to the land, to my garden where I have toiled while here in Texas. The songbirds who greet the day, busy with their vocalizing well into the evening, have taken respite for the night, leaving the garden chimes to answer the wind, along with the coyotes nested in the woods that lie a few hundred yards from my barn home. I will take to bed with me thanksgiving—for friends, especially the ones who take my hand when it most needs taking, and for like-minded spirits who love the sweet art of the humblest of the most humble, and for home, which for a couple of more weeks is here in Texas.

Back Home—Normangee Texas (April 5, 2009)
R. Harold Hollis