Best Antiques
Jackson Avenue
Some people prefer their history lessons in the form of books or cable networks. Other folks browse antiques shops. Old furniture, kitchen gadgets, clothes, toys and doodads tell stories of how people used to live. Large wardrobes recall a time when houses weren’t built with closets. Hoosier cabinets with flour bins harken a day when women spent more time in their kitchens baking up cookies and cakes. Strange and implausible fashions remind us that what is old can be new again someday. Jackson Avenue Antiques is a warehouse of well-organized furniture, glassware, decorative items and otherwise uncategorizable stuff of kitsch value or pop culture interest. Keep your eyes open and you might score a set of funky plastic canisters from the ‘60s, a handpainted trinket box from the ‘80s, and a picture frame accented with a plastic palm tree. Walk in with something in mind to look for, or roam from booth to booth, letting your imagination skim across the well-worn surfaces. These portraits of forgotten people and bureaus without belongings seem sadder than new objects, more endowed with personality for having once been owned and later sold or lost. Not always a lonely place, an antique store is also full of possibility, of things wanting to return home.