Wednesday, April 24, 2013

JFK Thrift Score

Good morning!

Well, they've gone and done the unthinkable...they've renovated my beloved Rivergate Goodwill. It's been like that for a couple months now but I think I've still been too much in shock to report back to you guys about my grief process. I know that in any other context, putting a fresh face on an old favorite would be a positive change. Better dressing rooms! Thousands of extra square feet! More room for dresses! But those of you who know thrift stores are also aware that when a business you frequent for "junk" or oldies changes, it is 'ere so rarely for the better. I have been coming up empty for the last three or four runs, and this never happens at the Rivergate Goodwill. There's always a plate or a sash or a handbag or a knickknack I just couldn't possibly live without, and yet lately, I've been slinking out of the double doors of said establishment with the most hangdog face. Cue the Ray Charles music. It's just sad!

The other day, I'd just about given up on the trip, when I saw a white plastic frame peeking out from behind some framed prints of geese in bonnets and downtown Milwaukee. Never lose faith! It was THIS:


Oh, just a mint condition, framed photo of John F. Kennedy. I saw a memorial picture almost identical to this hanging in Peggy Olsen's apartment in the third episode of this season of Mad Men. SCORE, SCORE, SCORE!

                        

As I picked it up, I noticed something was hanging off slash mostly taped to the back of the frame. What could it be?


JUST A SECOND PRINT OF A SMILING JFK. No freakin' way, dude! How did this happen?! I very carefully tucked the picture back into the cardboard backing of the frame, and practically skipped up to the cash registers to pay $2.99 for TWO, COUNT 'EM, TWO JFK PRINTS. In perfect condition. How! It seems like as soon as I lose faith in my good fortune at sales or stores, somethings pops up on the shore that restores my picker's confidence. Ugh! Look at his dreamy/creepy blue eyes! Isn't it strange how all the Kennedys with those eyes looks vaguely like old Civil War daguerrotypes? What is it about their permanently grave expression?


I think I almost like this second "artist's rendering" of the fallen president better than his official office portrait. Kennedy-ana is something that definitely appeals to me as a vintage shopper. I've been heartbroken more than once at not being able to afford a memorial wall hanging of JFK and Bobby Kennedy (like this one) on the two or three occasions I've seen it for sale in a shop or at the flea market. Dang, I went to look for some online to link you to an example and actually went "These are pretty affordable! I should try and get a few!" before mentally slapping my own wrist and clicking back to this blog window. NO EBAY. I AM NOT ALLOWED TO BE ON EBAY. My Pringle-like addiction to scooping up online goodies must be held at bay.

Here are some plates I have hanging in the kitchen of the Kennedys, the first pair of which were picked up in Louisville. Kentucky, man! That state loves their presidents! I also have Eisenhower and LBJ plates from that same excursion:


This next plate was a neat find because I love how it includes Jackie and the children. See her chic head covering for attending church services on Easter Sunday, 1962.


A little Googling turned up the actual picture the plate was based on! I wonder why they reversed the direction of John F.'s head? Everyone else looks exactly the same as the photograph.

source

Last but not least, from the pre-renovation Rivergate Goodwill, a plate from the JFK Museum in Dallas, TX comparing the Lincoln assassination with Kennedy's own demise. What? THE SIMILARITIES ARE EERIE. Or completely coincidental. But I love, love, love this stuff, so of course I bought it. Does it eek you out at all that the museum listed at the bottom of the plate is on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, the site where Lee Harvey Oswald was said to have been stationed when he fired upon the presidential motorcade? It's like the National Civil Rights  museum, which is in the Lorraine hotel in Memphis where Dr. King was shot and killed in 1968. I understand the historical significance of those places, but sheesh. I'd much rather have a memorial to those great men in a field somewhere, far from the bad vibrations and negative associations of those formerly innocuous, now sinister buildings. But nobody asked me!


Do you collect any kind of presidential memorabilia? What is it about the Kennedys that particularly appeals (or doesn't) to you? Which of the two portraits from my Goodwill find do you think I should display in a place of pride?

PS: I SOLD THE CHAIR! A nice couple who just moved to East Nashville from Washington state sent me an email yesterday afternoon not even asking to look at it, just wanting to know where and when they could pick it up! I hope that was just the thing to make their new house feel like home.

Have a great Wednesday, and I'll see you folks tomorrow!!

15 comments:

  1. I love those pictures! I hadn't even known about the Goodwill renovation. That's how long it's been since I've been there. My Grandmother once told me that she never cared about voting until JFK was up for election and then she got her voter registration card just to vote for him because he was so handsome. I always thought that it was funny until I read somewhere about a surge in women voters during his election. Those ladies wanted something purty to look at!

    That East Nashville couple better learn fast that you need to look at things before you promise to buy them. I mean, it could have smelled like old, spilled PBR or mothballs. They'll learn East Nashville soon enough. : )

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    1. Haha re: my Craiglist victims, I mean buyers. That's one of the main things I get worried about on Craigslist, having to say "yeah, I'll come look at it" and then getting there and it's like that green vinyl chair you featured on your blog the other day-- held together with duct tape, cigarette ash, and simmering malevolence towards mankind. But this guy was in good shape, so they should enjoy him in good health! :)

      I love that your grandma voted for JFK because he was a looker! THAT IS SO CUTE.

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  2. Luckily you found something after your last disappointing visits!

    We have a monarchy and I don't have any memorabilia, because I was never really liked them that much. But I have to say I'm starting to like them better.

    Maybe I can go for a hunt next week, when we have our Queensday to celebrate her birthday (this means a lot of festivities troughout the country and lots of fleamarkets). This year will be very special, since it will be our last Queensday, because our queen is abdicating, we're going to have a king after having 3 queens.

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    1. Isn't that interesting! I didn't know about your country having three queens in succession like that. It's funny how in America I really do feel like a lot of people have a strange place in their hearts for (pre-Reagan, anyway) presidents and astronauts. They just seem so larger than life!

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  3. Ooh, I thrifted an FDR portrait last year (I had been looking for that very one for years) and on the reverse of the FDR photo was an industrial project diagram- the same mat, just flipped over.

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    1. Oh, I bet the FDR portrait is great! I love hearing the older generation talk about him, it's like he was someone they knew. Isn't it neat that someone from such an upper-class background could make people from all different backgrounds respect and admire him? It really says something for him being made of sterner, better stuff than the blue bloods of today. And that's funny about the industrial project diagram! You should frame that one, too!

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  4. hmmm i can't decide which i like better! i have a beautiful photo portrait of jfk and jackie that is in one of those big gold frames with a light on it, like you would normally find a picture of jesus in! I need to hang that thing up. i have a set of jfk and jackie bookends too! travis is REALLY into reading about the assasination so he likes to pick those kinds of things up whenever I'll let him.

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    1. THAT'S SO NEAT! I love gold frames with the lights, AND bookends, and JFK and Jackie in either context sound fabulous!! If you or Travis get a chance, you should listen to those taped conversations they released a year or two ago of Jackie being interviewed just a little while after the assassination, it's INSANE. Like Jackie Kennedy right there in your earphones, talking to you about mundane little day to day things! Spoiler: she sounds EXACTLY like her cousin, Edie Beale (Jinkx's Snatch Game character/one my all time idols).

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  5. I'm obsessed with the Kennedy's too! I ordered my sister the jackie o Warhol print years ago! I am even obsessed with the gray gardens bouvier cousins! I love them all. I can definitely relate to getting disheartened at thrift stores. My loyal magic goodwill was the one on Hillsboro road in Franklin. I used to go there looking for a specific thing and would always find it...and then it just lost its magic. Now I'm obsessed with the one on hwy 96 in Franklin. It's always got nicer stuff and it seems the cool antiques are always passed over. I went Sunday before it closed and found a lot of great stuff in just a quick run through. My fella always finds awesome shirts there too and once got a basically custom fitted leather blazer in ox blood for like 6 or 7 bucks. It was immaculate. I feel like the Williamson county crowd sometimes give some really nice stuff and the shoppers sometimes overlook them. I've started reselling on eBay and have found tons of stuff there

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    1. I'm so glad I'm not the only one! I'm going to take your Goodwill recommendation to heart, I don't think I've been out to a lot of the ones past say the Charlotte Goodwill. Your man's oxblood blazer score just sold me on it, haha!

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  6. Love your shocked expression, looking all agog about picture number two!

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    1. Haha, thanks! It's a recreation, but it's pretty close to what I looked like in the store at the time! :)

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  7. What? They made a plate with Kennedy/Lincoln thing? I love it!

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    1. Isn't that crazy? I remember reading this comparison list in one of those "Strange but True!" books when I was a kid, and when I saw it on a plate, I was like, "THIS. IS. FANTASTIC."

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  8. An amazing score!! I used to always find good stuff at that goodwill too. Last great item was an Enid Collins purse. I've only been once since the renovation though and didn't find anything. Looks like there's still hope for it! :)

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