What would you do with an extra hour?

Written by Mike Johnson in Editorial

I was between service calls. I wasn’t unclogging a toilet in downtown Oconomowoc, fixing a garbage disposal in your local restaurant, or troubleshooting a leak coming from a mystery location somewhere on the 2nd floor of an old farmhouse.  Nope, instead I was between service calls at home digging through paper work for my plumbing business. For a small one man shop you wouldn’t think there would be much paperwork but it’s really amazing how this stuff creeps up on a person to the point where it seems unbearable at times.

I had to leave the house in about an hour and when your flipping through invoices, receipts, bills, and proposals an hour can go pretty quick. You know what else goes quick? Life!

One of my faults as a human being, a father , and a husband is I tend to lose track of what’s really important from time to time. A Plumbing business is full time and so is running a family, the goal of course is to make sure I keep a sharp balance on both but sometimes the scale tips to one side.

As I was clawing through my desk Emily my 10 year old daughter was sitting on the couch, and said in a loud voice “Dad, can you take me to an antique store?” It struck me as odd given her age but I didn’t waste one second before I said “Absolutely” and I knew just the place to do it; FOX Lake Country Antique mall in Oconomowoc located at 201 N. Fowler Street. www.foxantiquemalls.com

Our trip to Fox  Antiques

I was really excited, partially because I could do something with my daughter but mostly because at age 10 most kids don’t appreciate antiques and I think that’s something healthy for young kids. So I simply got out of my office chair and Emily and I jumped in the plumbing service truck and away we went. I had just an hour to spare and we were going to make the most of it.

If you have never been to Fox Antiques your missing something important. The store is a wonderful place full of great quality antiques but more importantly are the people who work in the store-they are friendly and passionate about helping customers. When we walked in the front door, immediately we were greeted by three friendly ladies. My daughter had a big smile on her face so we started our adventure. After looking at a few items on the shelves we came to a booth where they sold old records.

Emily singing like Elvis

Elvis has left the building

You should of seen the puzzled look on my daughters face as I explained that music use to come from a round disc made from vinyl-a far cry from the modern ipod. I did the best I could to explain bell bottom pants, gold plated sunglasses and big collars but she gave me that typical kid look of total confusion.

We traveled around the store and I watched as Emily picked up certain items and it made me feel good that she would study them pretty hard and ask questions about life in a different time period. We worked our way to the back of the store and Emily discovered a booth where they sold vintage clothing from the 20’s and 30’s. I wasn’t sure what her response was going to be but after looking through it she simply fell in love with the style of clothes back then. Fox Antiques has a great collection of vintage clothing, hats, purses, and jewelry so we were held up at this booth for a while.

Dizzy Gillespie eat your heart out!

We made our way to the middle of the store when Emily noticed an antique trumpet. Emily is a goofy kid at times so of course she just had to hold it up and inflate her cheeks like a professional jazz player. We were having the best time at the mall laughing and looking at thousands of items. Kids are really curious at this age and you can imagine how may questions were asked.

Emily playing the trumpet

With about 15 minutes left we managed to work our way to the far north side of the store near the bathrooms. After a quick break we ended up finishing our little 1 hour vacation in the most unusual of circumstances. It wasn’t the booth that was unusual or the content of the booth but rather the person who owns the booth.

Seriously, what are the odds of this happening?

As it turns out our very last stop was a booth owned by Emily’s art teacher at Meadow View school. Not only did  we have a good time talking to her but she had a real pleasant discussion with Emily about all her wonderful antiques in the booth she owns. I wanted to buy something special for Emily so her teacher showed Emily these neat vintage glass animals people collect. She taught us about the history and the meaning and a little about the different types of material they were made from. On top of the glass case was a little circular stand where she kept these little glass animals and I told Emily to pick one out. Emily decided that an Owl was what she wanted so that’s what we bought. Here is a photo of Emily holding her glass Owl after we bought it, we are in the plumbing truck and ready to go home.

Going home

So what would you do with an extra hour?

So what would you do with an extra hour? Sometimes in life we have to just stop what we are doing. We have to collect our thoughts and make sure we are paying attention to what really matters in life because time moves pretty fast. That hour I spent with my daughter is one that both her and I will never forget. We owe a special thanks for the helpful staff at Fox lake Country Antiques for making our time at the store so pleasant. We also owe a special thanks to my daughters teacher for being so kind and taking time out of her day to help my daughter understand the beauty of antiques.

Since this article was written my daughter is now a full fledged antique collector of small glass animals. I mounted a shelf on the wall where she puts them, we will be back to the antique store very soon.

Mike Johnson