Around seventh grade my grandmother and my step-grandfather got married; they had to merge their households so I got a bunch of stuff. I got this one table that my grandmother said dated back to pre-Civil War and it had inside it some things like…poker chips; they don’t have any casino’s name on them so I’m not really sure…and this old pen, which reminds me of when I was in high school.

My French teacher took us all the way from Michigan to Chicago to see the Impressionists [at the Art Institute of Chicago]. We spent a few minutes looking at the Impressionists and then we went to where he really wanted to go, and that was Maxwell Street. He was looking for pens and he had a wonderful pen collection, and this [pen that I found in the old table] reminds me of it.

This belongs in the Museum of Grandparent’s Paraphernalia

Exhibited by Jill

Transcript edited by Susan Golland