A little old man sat in the doorway as we walked in. He wasn't the owner. I knew we should have gone to church, but just haven't felt like it lately, so we went exploring instead. I told the visiting boys, lets get in my church car and see where it goes. Well it, Little Nick as I call it decided not to go too far, just to a small town square where a man owns what appears to be an antique store.
The building was more of an antique than anything else. Wooden furniture sits outside in all kinds of weather, covered by a roof, but with windswept rains I wouldn't buy anything from there made of wood, although I did buy one thing about two months ago. I can't mention it now as it' or part of it will be a gift for my daughter. She reads this so...
Well we get inside and this well dressed man, golden wedding ring stands out on his finger, white hair, wearing a fedora and back turned away from us as we enter. Yet he knows a woman has walked in as he greets me, hello Mrs....Wow I haven't heard that term that way in years. Since I don't like Mrs. I just said a quite hello and we walked down through the, body style selfish isles which mattered not to the boys. I squeezed, stood sideways, stretched taller, curved where I could in an effort not to knock anything over, after all I am a Viking! Boxes and boxes, glass counters stood piled high with things collected from anywhere and everywhere. Dust covered things, but most things were cleaned simply from handling. If we only had a ladder!
AHA! A treasure was found. I heard one brother say to the other do you have any money? Noo, I spent it all, remember? Me too said the older brother. Coming closer to me he says, look, look what I found! It was a comic, an old one but in nice condition. I told him to ask the man behind the counter how much it was. He came back too fast. It's only fifty cents he said. Good I told him and walked away. I was smiling to myself as he followed and asked can I get this instead of ice cream? Yes he was thinking. Sure, and he bought his comic as his little brother looked on. His little brother, with big brown eyes said I want ice cream in a sad and small voice. I knew he also wanted a treasure, and it wasn't long before he found it, a book. He said he never read that book before. Both boys read a lot of books. We made two trips to the library, taking out eight books for each child and they read them.
As we were leaving the older man with the white hair and fedora asked the boys if they had fun. They gave me a lot of that feel good stuff, when almost at the same time said we always have fun with her, but what they didn't know is, I had the most fun. So we left, got in the car and I told them, let's go to Rutters, an area convenience store. The younger boy asked if we were getting ice cream. Noooo remember, you spent your money and also bought a treasure. He said but, but, but I said I wanted ice cream...and you didn't answer me. I inside smiled, quietly said lets go. In the car they hopped, happy with a treasure, sad without ice cream.
I bought The New York Sunday News as they stood side by side, looking down into the ice cream case, lowered bottom lips. The woman behind the counter asked, Can I help you boys? I wish you could have seen their faces. You know what they said? Can she help us, looking pleadingly at me.
I smiled, said yeah, she can help you. She can even help me too. Grabbing our ice cream bars from the counter we jumped in the car, talking and planning the rest of the afternoon. They wanted to go back to the Antique/junk/treasure store.
Now that's a Viking day!
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