. . . even if you believe it's outlived it's usefulness. It may be useful to someone else and vintage items often retain their usefulness long after their time has come and gone.

My mother was the beginning of my little obsession. She and my father would go to the Catskills every weekend. They'd be driving around and my father would try to speed past the yard sale signs, but inevitably -- if he wanted to play golf in peace, anyway -- he'd cave in and stop at the sales. Those were the places that she found the amazing antique china cabinet that sat in the dining room, the solid oak bedroom furniture with the hand-carved wheat design, the 1930s drop-leaf table, and the antique steamer trunk where my father still keeps spare comforters and blankets. She believed in buying quality and the pieces she bought were QUALITY. People were getting rid of these things because they no longer had any use for them, but my mother had a use for them, so they still had purpose.

I sometimes went along and fell in love with "the hunt". There's nothing like seeing that item that catches your eye and you KNOW, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that it MUST come home with you. I felt that way about my first yard-sale purchase (a hand-carved alabaster box) and I still get that feeling now (especially whenever I run across a Fratelli Fanciulacci donkey).

Sometimes I fall out of love. That's when I either sell or give it away. There's a great feeling when you can match an item to it's new owner, especially when that item has sentimental value. Recently, I was very excited that the curator of a steamboat museum had purchased a vintage paddleboat t-shirt from me. That story got better when he emailed me to say that he'd worked on that paddleboat for 6 summers in high school and college. To me, it felt like that t-shirt had found its way home. Those are the moments that make what I do meaningful.