I SUPPOSE IT WAS INEVITABLE…ROBBERY
alan skeoch
july 21, 2025
I suppose it was inevitable that we would be robbed. too trusting.
For the last sixty years we have been collecting things
of little value to anyone. Things touched by a human hand and
thereby lost their virginity. Things bent and broken. Things that will never run gain
Things whose slivers have drawn blood and thereby earned
character and caution. things that few people would ever want.
Things that tell a story . Things whose value might
enhanced by a set buyer for a motion picture. Not grand things like Rosebud
or a brick from The Yellow Brick Road or snippet of hair in Scarlet Ohara’s locket
or a sweat drenched collar that was once around the neck of Lassie.
We collected things that might make movie more real like busted market
tables or empty time worn crates for an alley scene in
On The Waterfront or cages that could hold Marlon Brando’s pigeons
on a tenement roof of New York City or a farm wagon made useless by
wood boring insects but possibly wonderful in a Steinbeck moviesscape.
(word invented).
Just things soon becoming dust. But rentable this moment in time.
Some set buyers have shared our affectrion for things broken and busted.
Not enough of them to make big profits. Some years there are no profits
at all. Marjorie and I have spent half century buying these things at
auction sales. Friends ask ‘what if you get robbed?’ Unlikely. Why would
someone steal something that has no value? Or small
value as in round quart milk bottle complete with labelled cap from the 1930’s
valued at ten or twenty dollars. Or a fanning milll that will never clean grain again.
Market tables stollen a year ago.
Baskets stollen july 2025
Long ago we were robbed big time. Our house was emptied …value drained. Back then
I was reminded of a comment made to me by Evan Cruikshank in his Grade 12 history
class. “Never be hostage to fortune”. The message was clear Never let things own you.
If you do and lose things the loss becomes anchor round your neck. No more happy days.
So should our thief read this note we wish him or her well.
But, for the life of me, I can’t understand why you would want these things.
alan skeoch
postscript: If someone drops by and tries to sell you green market tables or Marjorie’s basket
collection you should note that Marjorie is not as charitable as I am.
give her a call.
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