Dinosaur Poop
Discovering history in unlikely storehouses of the past
I saw her hands first. Spindly, splayed in front of her golf shirt, a penitent gesture. She apologized, “We’re closing early today. In thirty minutes. I have a doctor’s appointment. I just wanted to let you all know.” She bounced her head a little as she said it, each sentence like asking for forgiveness. The steel wool of her hair barely moved. She explained all this to us, her audience of two, the only customers in her store. She smiled, and it, too, seemed an apology.
“Thank you,” I said, clutching an old, oversized glass cup with raised Coca-Cola script etched into its side, like the plastic ones I had growing up. I smiled, too, attempting to soften my entire face, its shape impressing upon her that we were fine with the shop closing early. Just passing through, I willed my smile to say.
She turned and moseyed back to the sales desk at the front of the antique store, passing history itself along her way.
My girlfriend Amanda and I had headed out from Los Angeles and up the coast to some friends’ wedding in a Northern California beach-town. We’d made it a whole hour on the road when we stopped for a bathroom break (I have the bladder of a chipmunk; she drinks enough green tea for both of us) and noticed the antiques warehouse next door, advertising its wares in bright orange and yellow lettering on the windows, including but not limited to “Militaria”. We could only guess what that was exactly, service paraphernalia perhaps? Whatever it was, whatever else might be hiding in there, we simply couldn’t say no.
Walking through the front doors, it all struck me as similar to other collections of amusements and oddities for sale on someone’s lawn or in the garage. Old wooden furniture, mirrors, and random framed images claimed a significant portion of the real estate, while jewelry lazed on shelving in the glass display cases, which were legion. At first, other than an artfully illustrated map of England (considerably out of our price range), there was little excitement to be had. And, aside from a woman who scared the crap out of me as she creepily crocheted by herself in a corner, it looked less like an antique store and more like a run-of-the-mill, if oversized, yard sale.
We had already elected to only make half the trip on the first day, so we kept shuffling through the aisles without any real sense of urgency. There was a rack of magazines that had been released around the turn of the millennium — not exactly antiques, but getting there, I noted, catching my maudlin reflection in one of the many display cases. There were frames populated with uninteresting images. More home goods, the descriptor normal serving here as an epithet.
Then, we reached the first of two rear aisles (there was yet another room hidden behind it) and turned a corner and discovered all the goodies and not a small amount of treasure.
We found ourselves casually passing everything from dusty VHS tapes of I Love Lucy to weatherbeaten World War II helmets (we were right about the militaria), not to mention an unfathomable number of samurai swords, some of which seemed to be in excellent condition. I’ve been to history museums that would be envious. Every room we entered after that had not one but several of the things nestled on racks, some sheathed, others with the blade on full display, sales tags dangling from their hilts. I could not even begin to tell you if they were reasonably priced, though I doubt it.
Being a writer and bibliophile, I hoped against hope they would have shelves stacked with old tomes, maybe even a first edition. The latter was not found, but they did have a small assortment of books, some of which had been printed near the beginning of last century, which always interests me. Vinyls, books, photographs, any media that has lasted a hundred years or more has my attention (not to mention my respect).
Also, being an actor and cinephile, I wondered, too, what kind of movie memorabilia they might have. They did not let me down. In addition to a full costume worn by an extra during the film The Last Samuari — perhaps a source, or another result, of the owner’s ostensible obsession — they could also boast an original stage prop reel projector from the Academy Awards. If it hadn’t been so enormous (or expensive), I might have taken it home with us.
In another room, Amanda discovered a complete oven and stove combination dating back to the middle of last century in great condition. It was teal, its paint still pristine. Notably, the knobs for the stove eyes had only two options: on and off. I guess cooking was a simpler art sixty or seventy years ago. Add to this the like-new china plates and cups and saucers we spotted and you’ve got yourself a pretty fantastic and authentic vintage kitchen.
Room after room, we found artifacts that told a different time’s tale, some not so very long ago but foreign nonetheless. I wondered what they had experienced, how they might have been used, whether they were saddened to part ways after a lifetime of service, vis-a-vis Andy and his action figures in Toy Story. Amanda and I are both suckers for nostalgia. Her eyes softened at a number of items, as she imagined their original owners. Part of me wanted to fire up Wikipedia and type in each object in turn, to know something of its past, storied or not, to catch a glimpse of its past lives.
As a self-described lifelong learner, I stumbled across an idea online some years ago for injecting spontaneity into one’s personal education: setting Wikipedia’s randomized page generator as your web browser homepage. I immediately made the change, and I cannot recommend it enough. It’s a fascinating tour through everything from history (famous and obscure) to a profusion of moth and beetle classifications, from esoteric geopolitical factions in unknown territories to artists and their art from every period you can think of.
In fact, earlier this week I read an article in its entirety (an epic three sentences) about Heinsburg, “a hamlet in central Alberta, Canada.” I learned of John Heins, a postal officer in the area whose surname the town now bears. These snippets of the past enable people to connect with moments and figures and places we may never have known existed, like the bookstore I plan to visit next month on my first trip to London, whose peculiar history I would likely never have heard of otherwise.
Writer and Harvard historian Jill Lepore has focused many of her bestselling books on archival minutiae: the strange origins of Wonder Woman, King Phillip’s War, an entire book dedicated to Benjamin Franklin’s youngest sister, Jane. These and other largely forgotten subjects might otherwise be lost forever. Chroniclers like Lepore restore them to a notable placement among more well-known figures in the annals of human experience. The same is true of those penning revised history, such as Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Alternative histories, though fictional in nature, can perform a similar task, readjusting, reframing, reconsidering a world quite like our own, yet containing a uniquely different past (e.g., Inglourious Basterds and Man in the High Castle).
History lurks everywhere. I imagine we passed innumerable rarities before finding the ones I deemed personally interesting. Without doing some digging or having someone to guide me, I might miss the most captivating item of all, in this particular store or anywhere else.
At the counter, as we paid for my Coca-Cola glass and thumbed through a catalogue of vintage Playboy covers, we noticed some kind of dispensing contraption on yet another glass display case behind us. We found ourselves instantly fascinated. It was a squarish cube the color of a basketball court made entirely of wood excepting a flat coin tray on the front. Neither of us had seen one before, so while she wrapped my cup, we inspected the box like we were indeed at a history museum, treading close enough for it to feel our breath, careful not to actually touch (i.e., “blemish”) it.
The woman said, “The owner got that. It’s a pencil dispenser. In public schools back in the day, if you forgot your pencil, they’d ask the kids to go down to the office and put a nickel in and buy one.”
Eyes expanding, hearts palpitating, pocketbooks contracting, we asked, “How much is it?”
She replied, “Oh, it isn’t for sale. It’s the one thing he won’t part with.”
We smiled amiably. Figures, we thought. The new knowledge (along with my cup) was treasure enough.
She finished layering the glass with newspaper and bagged it, imploring us not to knock it on the glass counter, lest it break. The warning seemed protection for the glass and for her, for reasons both practical and sentimental.
We thanked her, said we’d be back — not an idle promise by any means. On the way out, I caught sight of arguably the most peculiar object of the lot, though I didn’t know it yet. I walked over to it, read the sales placard daring me to have the experience of a lifetime: to place your hand on an actual meteor that was supposedly (and inexplicably) mixed with something else, which was magical in its own way. It was a solid thing, petrified, jagged, obsidian: inscrutable. After a moment, at long last, I took a breath, reached out, and tested it with the tip of my finger before committing a full palm: it was (allegedly) a meteor full of dinosaur poop.
Is it a hoax? Were there any actual meteor bits or dinosaur droppings in there under my hand? Could we really trust the signage? We’ll probably never know, and maybe that’s for the best. The moral here is watch where you step, I guess, because apparently that stuff can lurk everywhere, too.
