MOULTRIE, Ga. —

 There used to be a store here in Moultrie where the owner declared on an outside sign, “We buy junk, and we sell antiques.”

He cut to the chase. He could have said, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

Every time I watch “American Pickers” on television, I think about that store and smile. 

In case you haven’t watched that show, two fellows, Frank and Mike, ride around the country buying old stuff and then marking it up and selling it to collectors.

I don’t know where that fine line is between a bunch of old crap and what would be called “antiques.” Yet, on the extremes, I think there’s definite junk and definite antiques. 

 It’s kind of like the difference between a dilapidated old shack that’s in the way of a road improvement and an old shack where Mark Twain used to sit in the porch swing on Sunday afternoons. One is historical. One is a fire hazard.

It’s been said that hindsight is “20-20.” I don’t know who said it originally, but I think most of us get the gist, generally after we realize we should have taken the other route. On that note, there is no strong evidence that one will be rewarded by taking the road less traveled, especially if you venture a little ways down that less-taken path and hear banjo music.

But in retrospect, I really do wish I had kept some of those toys of my childhood. A pristine Red Ryder BB gun from the 1950s is valuable. And those old stone jugs I gave away …. well let’s just say I should have been kicked in the pants for parting with them. I think the one that still had a bit of moonshine left in it would have been the most valuable.

A few years back, I knew of an instance where a fellow had a 1958 Chevy two-door.  It was put away in storage as brand new and brought out in “mint” condition in the late 90s. And it was suddenly a collector’s item.

Now please understand that when it was brand new, it was one of the ugliest cars Chevy ever built, in contrast to the previous year when the 1957 two-door hard top convertible could not have been improved upon.

But just like hindsight is “20-20,” apparently time forgives. Maybe it was because a 1958 Chevy was featured in the movie “American Graffiti.”

Now aside from my Red Ryder BB gun, a few toys and my arrowhead collection, much of my stuff that I might have saved would be called junk today. I do have a handmade turkey call that survived at least 80 years in a ramshackled old log cabin that was about to fall in. Let me describe the old cabin another way — it involved load-bearing kudzu. It was an early home to my grandma and grandpa. 

Now to most people, that device is just two pieces of wood that had some limited practical application a century ago. But to me, it has great sentimental value because my grandpa’s hands carved it. It’s historical only to me.

Now Frank and Mike get giddy when they find only a rusty skeleton of what was once part of an Indian motorcycle. I get giddy when I pick up a spear point that had been shaped by a native American Indian thousands of years prior to Indian motorcycles.  Guess which one will sell for the most money.

So maybe there should be a  reality show titled, “What’s Truly Important To Us,”  and just pray that it doesn’t turn out to be the latest video game.

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. Email: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)