Tonight I understand that such a feeling of uncertainty is not only normal, but probably the best that can be expected under the circumstances. It is probably the most common set of emotions shared by Americans a week after the attack on our country.
Certainly the title of this Topic, Antiques & Collectibles, would seem a very trivial and self-indulgent subject for conversation. The antiques industry, like leisure travel, sees its best years when the public is confident and the economy is flourishing. When the future is uncertain and the economy faces tremendous challenges, when stock portfolios and paychecks disappear, then the public turns away from whimsy.
There are, of course, certain ghoulish individuals who immediately put up World Trade Center memorabilia on e-Bay, but those were quickly banned.
I suppose there is another way we who have always enjoyed collecting various things can continue to pursue that avocation. What about pulling together those memories of a time in your family when everyone was together, such as Thanksgiving, or Rosh Hoshana, or Mother's Day. Why not gather all the loose photos you've been stashing away in shoe boxes and put them into albums for each of your children?
If you still have the medals your father or grandfather earned in wars past, why not mount them in a simple frame and display them with pride? What about that nursing certificate your aunt earned, or the vocational school diploma of your son or brother? They worked hard for those honors. They deserve to be displayed.
If you have a bent for geneology, look back at those ancestors who came from distant countries, and frame their pictures if you have them. Or letters, diaries, birth certificates, steamship tickets, a prayer shawl or candlesticks, marriage certificates, family bibles. Is there a piece of pottery, a hand-woven basket, a wooden trunk, a handmade quilt that you can make the focal point of your home?
As you bring these things out of their hidden storage places, explain what you know about them to your children, and make them understand that they will become the keepers of these memories for their children.
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