If walls could talk.

I find it fascinating when someone on the “Antique Road Show” has an item they don’t know anything about sells for an unbelievable amount of money, lots of money, plenty of money. I enjoy sitting on the couch waiting for the dollar amount to pop up on the screen. It’s a game I play. “How much is that piece of crap worth?” Fifteen hundred dollars? Wow! What? 35,000 dollars for a stool. I’d love to get 35,000 dollars for my stool.
Collections are always fun too. It lets me reminisce about things that I had that I didn’t save. I couldn’t save a dollar to save my soul but isn’t it interesting that somebody was wise enough to save a collection of love letters from “Joe Blow,” a person that they didn’t know anything about? Their grandparent’s parent did and now it’s worth a lot more then they ever thought it would, which makes me think of what someone told me about value.
He held up a pen and said, “This pen is worth a buck. I’d sell it to your for seventy-five cents if you need to use it, but if president Bush walked in and used it to sign his name I could get at least 10 dollars for it.”
Old coins are something like that but if you put 19th century nickels in a snack machine you’ll only get a bag of chips.
Things passed down intrigue me because it’s an heirloom. That’s a three-dollar word, “heirloom.” Say it again. I won’t write it, just say it.
Taken from Wikepedia:

In popular usage, an heirloom is something, perhaps an antique or some kind of jewelry, that has been passed down for generations through family members. “Loom” originally meant a tool. Genuine heirlooms were almost unknown by the beginning of the twentih century.

“Tools” weren’t handed down in my family, into it they were born.
I own a few antiques, a bed I got from my uncle that he died in, the TV set he watched, one of the first ever made, which is an old bulky, tiny screened, black and white that I gutted. I even put a portable TV in it and played some old fifties TV shows. When the Three Stooges came on I could feel the presence of my dead uncle watching along with me. It asked me to pull his finger.
I also own a really cool, wooden, portable bench. I’m told it’s from the 19th century. I paid seventy dollars for it about 20 years ago. It really is cool. Closed, it looks like a guitar case but when you open it, it folds out and becomes a bench. It’s heavy to carry and I don’t use it much but it really is amusing to walk into a crowded outdoor setting with people sitting on the ground and in I walk with what people think is a guitar and proceed to open a bench, then sit on it towering above everyone’s head. I get a kick out of it. I think I’ll use it this summer.
I’m a history buff and I’ve always liked the phrase, “If walls could talk,” which makes me wish antiques could talk, too. For something to be in a place for an extremely long period, collect dust, take in time, and repeat what it saw, would be worth $35,000. Oh, wait. That’s what old people do. So, listen to them.