Writing Life

Today Julie and I went out on the road in search of antiques. We don’t have a lot of money to spend on antiques these days, but we still like to look at them. Our interests are numerous, so we can usually find something to interest us at even the tiniest, least impressive antiques stores (and, by the way, tiny-ness is rarely an indication of an antiques store’s merit; plenty of excellent antique shops, like Nevada City’s Main Street Antiques, aren’t much larger than the average American living room). Among the things we like to collect (or would like to collect, if we had the money) are vintage advertising posters, old clocks, figural bronze, original oil paintings, half dolls, Steiff animals, Maxfield Parrish prints, vintage cast-iron cookware, globes, maps, anything art deco, California tile-top furniture, ocean liner memorabilia, handwritten letters and diaries, Arabiana and Persiana, old books of various genres (travel, exploration, poetry, fiction, history, cooking, biography, etc.), and postcards.

Today our plan was to travel in a large, clockwise loop. Driving south on Highway 99, we intended to make stops in Galt, Lodi, and Stockton. From Stockton, we planned to cut across to I-5 and drive north to Woodland for one last stop before returning home to Sacramento. Our first stop was our most successful. We stopped in Galt not to shop for antiques but to eat at the renowned Squeeze Inn, a greasy burger dive that has been featured on the Food Network and in countless internet and magazine articles. There are actually two Squeeze Inn restaurants, both owned by the same family. The original Squeeze Inn is located just a few miles from our house in Sacramento. Strange as it may seem, we’ve never eaten there. Every time we’ve tried to grab a burger at the local Squeeze Inn, the place was so crowded that we couldn’t even find a parking spot. We figured we might have better luck at the Galt restaurant, which is about twenty miles south of Sacramento in a much less-crowded community. And we were right. We arrived at the restaurant at about 11:30 and had to wait only about ten minutes for a table. We each ordered the famous “Squeeze with Cheese.” We also shared a basket of fries. The Squeeze with Cheese is no ordinary burger. The cheese that they lay over the patty is a round disc of cheddar about the size of a Frisbee. Its circumference is several inches larger than the patty’s own circumference. It drapes over the patty and it’s outer two inches get toasted on the grill. When it arrives at your table, the burger looks as if it is wearing a lacy orange tutu. The cheese is toasted but still warm and pliable. Plucking off pieces of it with your fingers and eating it is probably the most enjoyable part of the Squeeze Inn experience. The family of four sitting next to us was so impressed by the size of the cheese on the hamburger that they snapped numerous pictures of it with their cell phones. Each member of the family held up his or her burger while the others snapped away with their phones. Julie and I were too busy eating to make a photographic record of the experience. Thanks to the Squeeze Inn, the first stage of our journey was a success.

Stage two brought us to Lodi. We hadn’t gone antiquing in Lodi for more than a decade. We no longer know anything at all about the city’s antiques profile. But we came armed with the latest edition of The Complete Guide to Antique Shops, Malls, and Events on the West Coast. This little book informed us that downtown Lodi was home to six antiques stores, including three multi-dealer malls, all of them located within easy walking distance of the intersection of Pine and School Streets. Julie and I parked the car and began walking down South School Street. The first shopped we looked for was called The Immigrants’ Corner. We discovered an empty storefront where the antique store presumably used to reside. The next shop was Precious Treasures, at 100 West Pine Street. Gone. The next stop was Nana’s Attic, at 105 South School Street. This one was supposed to house the wares of 50 different dealers. Gone. In the end, we discovered that only two of Lodi’s six antique stores are still in business. One of them is a modestly stocked multi-dealer mall called Second-Hand Rose. The other is a small shop that sells mostly Hummel figurines, a genre of collectible that Julie and I have no interest in. It hasn’t been widely reported, but antiques shops (at least the low-end antiques shops that Julie and I usually visit) have been devastated by the current economic downturn. When people can barely afford to eat, they certainly cannot afford antiques. Even Julie and I rarely buy antiques anymore. We just like to look at them. But if the current trend continues, soon the only place to look at them may be eBay.

We left Lodi disheartened and empty-handed. In Stockton we visited two extremely modest multi-dealer malls. The pickings were slim. We left town empty-handed and headed up to Woodland. Our guidebook told us that there were four antiques shops on Woodlands’ Main Street. Sadly, only two of them remain. We spent less than an hour in Woodland before climbing into the car and driving back home.

It used to be that we considered an antiques safari a success if we were able to find just a handful of tempting antiques during the course of the day. In the near future, we may consider a safari a success if we manage to find just a single antiques store that still has its doors open.

Julie seemed a bit dispirited as we drove home. I told her not to worry. The movie Public Enemies had arrived from NetFlix yesterday. I told Julie, “It’s set in the 1930s, so there should be plenty of cool antique clothing, cars, and décor to look at. That cheered her up a bit. After dinner, we flopped onto the couch and prepared to be dazzled by the retro look of Public Enemies. But the movie proved to be so pretentious, violent, and dull that we turned it off after thirty minutes. Instead we watched Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore in Whip It, the story of a Texas teen who lies about her age in order to compete in a women’s roller derby league. There were no antiques anywhere in the movie but at one point Ellen Page’s character walks through a school library and passes a table on which a dozen desk globes of various makes and models are arrayed. The globes were onscreen for no more than a few seconds, but they brightened my mood considerably. If only there had been some ocean liner memorabilia for Julie to look at it would have been the perfect end to a busy day.

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