What Vintage Does for My Life

[Weston]

Early warning: this may get rambly.

As I sit here in my small home, I'm surrounded by my Grandmother's Ethan Allen furniture from the mid 50's (which was when it was still a subline of Baumritter), I can feel a real connection to my family who have passed away. My grandmother's old AM tube radio in a Spice Chest still works and starts with quietly, warming up slow. 50 years of photographs sit sorted in boxes downstairs that I need to ID people from, lest the one remaining family member die who can tell me who those folks are.

In my curio cabinet I bought in younger days when I was more flush with capital, both my grandfathers portraits reside from WWII. A good conduct medal rests against a combat knife near AAF insignia from his uniform. The family's first phone book from the tiny town they lived in in the 50's is underneath. A tiny metal Sears Tower reminds me of a trip with my lovely wife to Chicago.

The walls are lined with vintage photos of my Grandparents and father, inviting companion pictures when my little one will someday be born. My home is getting sparser, thankfully, as I weed out the junk I don't need, holding onto the inheritance I have from my family which has lasted decades. Nowadays its fun to wheel out the 1959 Kirby which hums like the day it left the factory (rebuilt for her in 1996 for the sum of $15.)

As I leave the house, I grab one of my fedoras which make me feel like an honest to goodness adult among a nation of people who will never grow up. I drive my big American-made Oldsmobile everywhere with pride, especially to Sears, where I once worked, and love to shop still because of its history.

I love the drive to church as my family (wife and I for now) get dressed up, and she's the best looking woman in the place. We go and worship in freedom, where no one comes to tell us our business, and I'm glad for it.

I come home and each night as I put away my clothes and ready for the next day, I always take a look at my Air Force uniform hanging in the closet, waiting for me to take it up again in training and eventual help to our young soldiers in the future.

I'm OK with today. I've got enough of the past to tell me that the tomorrows are gonna be just fine too.

 

[Lee Lynch]

Well, I rather enjoyed reading of your environment and daily life.

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

Well, I rather enjoyed reading of your environment and daily life.

hear hear.

It sounds like your life is almost complete and you need not anything to make it any better than it already is, with the exception of things to come I am sure. It's nice to have a simple life, with simple pleasures, and asking for a quart of milk is nothing too large to ask for. I don't have any "vintage" items, no "vintage" household, nor car, one real vintage suit, but not having these items do not take away nor add to the kind of life I give myself every day. Here's a fictional example (and not far off) of a day in the life.

I like to explore, and I sometimes feel some I know do not like to take that sort of chance. It's not a bad thing, as if it makes them happy, they should stick with it and not try to change or let anyone change it for them. That's only a small opinion.

While I am at home, I do not watch the news, and the only exception to reading the newspaper is to look at the movie listings or read at least one article that's interesting. When I'm outdoors, I hardly pay attention to the weather. If it's cold, nature is just running it's course, and it doesn't stop me from doing whatever I want to do, be it staying indoors, or going for a walk outside.

While observing a young (probably my age) couple cuddling up to each other on the bus, I can't help but smile. They aren't staring at the man whose trying to preach to everyone and the woman whose arguing with that homeless man. They have each other and it's nice to see any sort of happiness, anywhere. When I look out the window, I see a few people riding their bikes down the road, trying to race the bus to it's next stop, but fail. No big deal, they carry on with their journey.

While walking down the street around Hollywood, I enter a shop, and the owner gladly says hello, like he's known me forever. I greet him the same and ask him how's life. He says it hasn't been any better since his wife gave birth to a new son, and he's about to buy a new car. He jokes about the gas prices and says his only disappointment is taking his new son out to the park, when the gas prices won't get him very far from the cityscape, but he doesn't care.

As I turn the corner onto my own street, a few neighbors taking their dogs for walks, charmingly bow their heads and I ask their dogs if they're enjoying their walks. Sadly the dogs just bark and the owner pulls them away and tells them to be quiet. As the day ends, I hop on my computer and check my empty email with the exception of a few posts from here and some useless junk mail. A lifestyle that consists of old items isn't my intention, nor is my passion. My passion is life, and whatever takes me into the next decade, even if it's 2010, and not 1940.

And that was just a day. I'm still waiting for the next.

 

[Spitfire]

What vintage does for my life?
It makes me feel secure. Safe.

That's why I am not 100% vintage. Not even 50%.

Now, dont get me wrong here.
I like vintage. I spend hours hunting down vintage books on RAF squadrons in the summer of 1940. I spend lots of money gettin the right Irvin. The right jacket.
But I refuse to feel safe, to settle down, to be content.

 

[Elaina]

Mine can be summed up in one item in my home.

My treadle was unloved, abused, forgotten, and useless. It sat in a barn for 30 some odd years: the decals were silvered, the clutch was rusted, the irons were close to becoming pitted beyond repair, and the engine someone so thoughtfully added to it was so gunky it took me the better part of a year to get it all the gunk off the machine. Hornets built nests in his drawers, a mouse chewed part of a drawer off, the top varnish was peeling and warped, and the locking mechanism was so rusted I wasn't sure it could be locked. Friend of mine bought it and put him in her garage for 2 years. So Mike (because, yes, I named him) sat.

I was given the opportunity to take it off my friend's hands for a song, with the statement "Well, it turns, but that's about all it'll do." I got it home and spent 6 weeks cleaning, sanding, oiling, washing, taking apart everything that moved (and some that didn't), until I got him to sew. Not well, but it was something. Took me another month to get a decent stitch out of him, and another 2 weeks to get him to sew like a dream. The locks took me the better part of a year, and only worked finally when I had an in law move in that was a known liar and thief (I, oddly, keep my jewerly, money and credit cards in it). Which he works wonderfully to this day.

In the end I got a sad, ugly, nearly broken machine that I barely coaxed back to usefulness. Now I have an ugly, machine that about near purrs when I sit down with him, holds what I hold dear safe inside him, and became my friend. And when I was told I had 6 months to live and I got insanely depressed and wanted to go off myself then, I could sit and have ready built therapy, because it's not only soothing, but I felt loved by my machine (crazy, yes, but you can't tell me different).

So, my 1926 ugly-as-sin sewing machine has a place in my living room. He sits, in all his fabulously majestic shabbiness, often hidden from view by the current project, the cat's toys (which is something else entirely...my crazy, depressed cat thinks Mike is his, and stresses if Mike is out of the house), bills I need to pay, my purse, and my son's toys hanging from his irons. And why does all this matter to me? Mike symbolizes all my childhood dreams (I always wanted one), my friend when I have no one else to cry upon, my safe and secret keeper and ultimately, my symbol of hope. Even something so ugly and considered so useless it was tossed to the side came back from the brink of all that and found a place it belonged.

As I said, he's good therapy.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's beautiful, Elaina -- Mike sounds like a real *personality.*

For me, I guess I could say that living in vintage surroundings simply feels comfortable and normal. Me, I've got no problem at all with being comfy and content and settled!

 

[LadyDeWinter]

As a child I liked these old golden era black and white films and the music, these things made me feel safe. I felt very secure with my grandparents it was always so quiet in their flat and I liked their 1930s furniture and I loved their tiled stoves (they dind't have a radiator). I felt so comfortable there. And I want exactly that feeling in my life and I think I have it. I love my old furniture and I feel comfortable in my old-fashioned cloths.
I feel rather content and safe but I don't really know if I feel settled. I am open for changes. You never know what happens in life.

 

[Jack Scorpion]

My room is a mess. Ties flop about on the floor, over spectators and loose paperbacks. Maybe a couple fedoras spill from the closet. The bookshelf is overflowing with mass market mystery fiction. Most of the pages are yellowed and stiff to the touch. They have that scent, too, the old book smell.

Everything is wood. The only thing metal in my room is the computer and the printer. A balalaika hangs to one side. White walls. Fedoras on hooks. Then the pictures and posters. They cover every inch. Old movie posters. Noir. Old Russian flicks. Nosferatu. A seventies Michael Jackson. A borsalino ad, framed. A rug decoration my grandmother made.

What is the vintage lifestyle for the poor and young? Topic of mind. Certain associations in my apartment with items of interest to me. A fedora hangs from the edge of my computer. A hardboiled novel rests on my unmade bed. A cooperstown baseball jersey hangs on my closet door. This is what vintage does for my life.