“Your hair has a lot of tiny curls,” the reporter said to me. Her name was Rosemary and she was a white colleague at the paper where I worked in Tampa, Fla., some years ago.…
My black hair’s not kinky, it’s curly
Posted in Style
Month: October 2009
Rubber stamps as collectibles
Posted in Crafts
I was at an auction in New Jersey a couple months ago digging through rows of boxes laid out on the ground in back of an auction house. In the fourth row, I came across…
David Webb jewelry at auction
Posted in jewelry
My auction buddy and I went to this week’s Quality Auction at one of our favorite auction houses to drool. We knew we couldn’t afford anything, but who knows, we might get lucky. We sat…
Wedgwood anti-slavery pin
Posted in jewelry
A couple weeks ago, I got a flyer in the mail for the upcoming two-day Quality Auction at one of my favorite auction houses. These are the house’s “prices-in-the-stratosphere” auctions for those of us who…
The dollar sounds of motorcycles
Posted in Vehicles
From outside came the sounds of motorcycles, their vroom! vroom! blasting the Sunday morning air like thunder. It was motorcyle auction day and the guys were out. Inside, about 50 to 75 men by themselves, men…
My auction buddy overheard a regular bidder tell someone recently that when he went to his car one night after an auction, two of his tires had been flattened. This bidder is a quiet man…
Rolling pin with autographs
Posted in Kitchen
I have a wooden rolling pin in my kitchen, sitting atop my stove like a piece of sculpture. It’s plain, relatively new and doesn’t get much use. It’s nothing like the old wooden ones I…
The jewelry of Art Smith
Posted in jewelry
I was chatting with my friend Cheryl, a fashion and style consultant who collects perfume bottles, and she asked me to keep an eye out for the jewelry of Art Smith at auction. I don’t…
Night lights and estate sales
Posted in Lighting
I went to an estate sale once with my auction buddy. A friend of hers was clearing out her parents’ house after they had died. It was a two-story house just outside Philadelphia, with boxes…
The life sounds of soul music
Posted in Music
I had just settled into my seat in the small theater and was reading the program when I happened to look up to see that in the darkness, a man had slipped onto the stage.…