I was in the mood to visit an antique store today.  So my wife and I traveled 30 minutes by car to reach the one we consider the best in our area.  It's in the old train depot in Delphos, Ohio, and - I can now say with absolute certainty - it happens to be open every day of the week except Monday.
     So.  Instead of visiting an antique store as I'd planned, I ended up remembering the one I visited on Saturday.  Somehow that seemed even better. 
     A visit with a past twice removed....

     I'd gone to the antique store on Saturday (the antique store in the old armory in Spencerville, Ohio) looking for old expressions and catch phrases.  I found some I liked, too.  A crisp "See you in the funny papers!"  A charming little "You tell 'em, brother - I stutter!"  A slightly moldy "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" that had been misplaced in a box full of yellowed "You're the cat's pajamas!"  The only one I bought, though, was a small but all-purpose "Well, I'll be jiggered!"  It's been a long time since I've been jiggered.  I figure I'm about due and I want to be ready.  Last time I was jiggered, I could only stand there with a dumb expression on my face.  I really hate that.  But now that I'm adequately prepared, let the jiggering begin!

     The armory wasn't air conditioned.  Almost every Ohio community of any size has an old armory that was built 60-100 years ago when fear of labor unrest gripped the powers that be.  Since the soldiers who would be called upon to actually use these armories to reign in the organized masses weren't themselves unionized, it was easy to deny them air conditioning. 
     Anyway, it has been a long time since I was in a store that wasn't air-conditioned and the fact added greatly to the overall atmosphere of going back in time.  Even in my youth, most stores were air-conditioned.  The libraries weren't, though, so a summer trip to them invariably offered me the opportunity to inhale the scent of fresh-baked books.  Just the thought of that scent can make my mind water. 
     The armory antique store had a lot of books....
     We ended up buying about $50 worth and still left with our curiosities dangling from our heads....
     My favorite purchase: "Nuts and Bolts of the Past: A History of American Technology, 1776-1860" written by David Freeman Hawke in 1988.
     So: I am now remembering a 2-day-old trip to an antique store in a 70-year-old armory where I bought an 11-year-old book about 150-year-old technology.
     Pretty daring behavior for one who can become dizzy with time sickness just from glancing at a calendar too fast....

     As my wife drove us home I stared out my window and daydreamed as I usually do.  It's a habit I picked up from riding the buses of Toledo for too many years.  I'm sure it's ruined me as a driver forever.  So be it.  My daydreams have taken me to far more interesting places than any vehicle ever has.
     About halfway home, I noticed a pretty little scene intruding into my dreams, though.  Perfect summer-green trees set against a perfect puffy cloud.  The trees were old.  The cloud was one of those huge ones that might soon build into a distant thunderhead capable of killing people with its lightning but just then looked like it might have fallen harmlessly out of a book of fairy tales.
     A perfect little scene, made all the sweeter by the ephemerality imposed upon it by my being in a speeding car.
     And yet, try as I might, I couldn't concentrate on it.  I couldn't really see it.  That was partly the result of my poor eyesight, of course, but more than that, it was the result of the scene's activating or resonating with countless memories of other, similar scenes I've seen. 
     Whatever the exact cause may have been, the fact remained that I simply couldn't see the scene as it was.
     It was a slightly scary realization.  No matter how hard I looked, the images became ensnarled in old feelings and associations as fast as they entered my eyes.
     The result was that I was living in a solipsistic world and not THE world, and I knew it. 
     That is to say, I was living in my head more than in that particular time and place, and I couldn't escape. 
     And if you don't think that's spooky, squeeze yourself inside my skull and try it sometime.

     Thinking back on it all later, I compared my mind to an old audio tape that was recording new sounds without all of the old sounds being erased as it went along.  I think as a child I started off with a genuinely blank tape which picked up on things the way fresh masking tape can pick up lint.  Now the tape is clogged and dull instead of eager and "attentive." 
     Ack!
     On the plus side: I can recall feeling terribly trapped in the present moment instead of the past when I was a child.  If the moment was empty or bad, I was stuck in a special little kind of hell.  Now I can simply live happily alone in my mind until a better moment comes along.  If the lint of new sights and sounds doesn't stick to my mind the way it used to, well, that's all to the good if those new sights and sounds are bad. 
     Still....
     We know where this is leading.  This is leading to the day when nothing new can penetrate my mind - when it's lost all of its stickiness - when the buzz of the past completely drowns out the sweetest songs of the present. 
     It is leading to the day when everything about the year 2025 reminds me of something I saw or heard in 1975, even though I vowed in 1975 never to be like those old people for whom everything in my world reminded them of 1925.
     At least I won't be compelled to tell everyone within earshot exactly how and why 2025 is like 1975. 
     If I do - well, I'll REALLY be jiggered!

    Guess I better go put that expression in a safe place right now.....