Woodburn: Antique man in antique shop
“How much?” I inquired, a hurling stick — “hurley” as the Irish call the flat-sided, fat-headed bats — cradled in my outstretched palms.
“Aye, that one near be old as me,” replied the proprietor of a Kilkenny antique shop, surely angling for a high price due to its vintage. “ ’tis certainly older than you, young man.”
That he called me, at age 63, a young man tells you that George, as he would later introduce himself, was himself an antique. Indeed, his thinning hair was snowy; his posture weary even before noon; his hands, covered by translucent skin as wrinkled as a shirt taken from a laundry hamper, had walnuts for knuckles.
Like his shop, a hole-in-the-wall he has owned for the past half-century — or nearly half his life, I guessed — George seemed worthy of the “Protected Landmark” plaque outside on the front door.
More: Woodburn: Old and battered and beautiful
The hurley in my hands surely has not been protected from rough play, bad weather, or Father Time. Its white ash has turned a ghostly grey, much like George’s hands, and a steel protective band around the toe of hitting blade is spotted with rust. The shaft and handle bear scars from a thousand games.
And yet the ol’ stick is a thing of beauty.
And yet ol’ George had a boyish sparkle in his ice-blue eyes and a personality as warm as a peat fire in the evening. Hence, my quick step inside his shop turned into a rather long visit.
In appearance, George was as Irish as a leprechaun and not much taller; in speech, his brogue was as thick as the mash on a plate paired with bangers. Before giving me a price for the hurley, he said he had two more sticks if I was interested in a selection.
Thus began a child’s game of “hot” and “cold” — and “cooler” and “warmer” — as George, sitting on a stool behind a counter cluttered with jewelry and watches and other treasures, sent me weaving my way back, back, back through the bowling lane-narrow time capsule with Jenga-like stacks on the floor and over-packed shelves rising on the walls.
With George’s GPS-like guidance, I found the two needles in a haystack in surprisingly short order. Both hurleys were newer — “less old” is a more apt description — and less battle-scarred than the fossil that originally caught my eye.
I asked George if he remembered everything he had in the shop; and, if so, knew where everything was located.
“Aye, of course,” he insisted.
This was a tall boast from the wee man, for his antique emporium seemed to hold the relics of every estate sale in Kilkenny over the past century, all of it organized by a passing hurricane. Having just visited historic St. Andrews Golf Club in Scotland, an array of golf clubs caught my attention, especially the hickory-shafted “mashies” and “niblicks” and “spoons” that looked like Ol’ Tom Morris swung them in the 1860s.
There were also wooden tennis rackets from Bill Tilden’s era and 1970s aluminum ones; shelves of novels and vinyl LPs and 45s; phonograph players and rotary phones and typewriters; and on and on, everything in the world shoehorned inside the tiny shop that seemed as impossibly bottomless as Mary Poppins’ magic carpetbag.
Everything in the world, that is, except a shoehorn — I actually asked George if he had one, playfully testing him; he didn’t, but instantly directed me to an antique wood-and-brass boot remover.
“How much for this one?” I asked again, my heart still stuck on the homely first stick.
To be concluded next week.
Woody Woodburn’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available most everywhere you buy your books. He can be reached at woodywriter@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Woodburn: Antique man in antique shop
