Snohomish Treasures

 “For those who are willing to make an effort, great miracles and wonderful treasures are in store.” - Isaac Bashevis Singer

Snohomish, Washington. She’s a sleepy but sturdy little town, once the belle of the logging industry but now known by locals for one particular commodity: antiques. Weekends, holidays, sunny summer afternoons - well, most any day at all you’ll find First Street pleasantly and charmingly overrun with families and groups of all shapes and sizes who’ve come to stroll along the nearby river, dine in any one of at least a dozen eateries, browse through stores packed with modern wares, or - like my second born and me - search high and low through the treasures sure to be hiding amidst several hundred antique stalls. 

After several years of refinement, we’ve narrowed our focus to two highly reliable sources: My Eclectic Hone and Antique station at Victoria Village. Both feature the usual wild confabulation of bone china, cassette tapes, mid-century spice racks, gigantic old crocks, wood kitchen utensils, glass fishing floats, old postcards, and enough candlesticks to light up Buckingham Palace in a power outage. Really, there’s no end to the mind boggling array of bits and bobs that can be found on any given day but here are a few that caught my eye during our visit the other day. 

^ Anything with cubbyholes. I’m a fool for the look of a tidy grid. 

^ Scallopy things. Always charming. 

^ Footed bowls. Bonus points for well worn metals. 

^ Sponge ware puttering in its myriad shapes and sizes. Also blue slip ware pottery. Bonus points for jugs made into cozy lamps. 

^ Rustic paintings of snow covered barns. Red and white dishes, heavy mixing bowls, Longaberger baskets. I love to walk the razor’s edge between country cozy and sleekly modern. 

* * * * *

All in all, we saw much to be admired and temptation followed our every move. But in the end, cooler heads prevailed. I held myself in check and purchased just these two things:

Two baskets. Reasonably affordable. Always useful. I never feel rash for buying a basket because I know I’ll adore it for many years to come, inventing countless new ways to put it to good use. After all, I still have the first baskets I ever bought, as a teenager headed off to college. To this day, they float around the house, drifting from place to place and use to use, always timelessly beautiful and remarkably handy. 

Which is, I suppose, a fair description of Snohomish. Thank you, little town, for the  treasures you bring to my life.