PRE-REVOLUTIONARY WARLOCK

RANGE: Ye Olde Antique Boutiques, garage sales, behind the bushes beside well-marked historic trails, landmark gift shops, graduate seminars, culture loops, behind glass cases in the court house, neatly stacked on the library lawn, at Ladies’ Club Lectures (illustrated with slides)—wherever Americans dredge the shallow waters of their Nation’s History for rusty artifacts and a sense of tradition. HABITS: By most Fairy standards, or indeed by most civilized human standards, American history is not yet long or rich enough to be of more than passing interest. Yet the Pre-Revolutionary Warlock possesses many Americans with the notion that they can discover, and indeed purchase, a past for themselves. Thus, he has sponsored and fostered such groups as The Daughters of the American Revolution, The Daughters of The Confederacy, The Sons of The Pioneers, The Daughters of World War One, The Daughters of the Korean Police Action, and The Illegitimate Offspring of Veterans Against the Vietnam War. He sends us out on archeological digs around the summer house, where we learn that nearby once lived Indians, whose culture consisted of the manufacture and burial of small flints, which may or may not be arrowheads. He leads us on grade school field trips, where the sniff of a powder horn, the heft of a Bowie knife, or the sight of a surviving bison sets off a lifelong obsession with Americana. The spell cast by the Pre-Revolution-ary Warlock often lasts into our adult lives. We long to live in dilapidated eighteenth-century shacks. surrounded by Ethan Allen cobbler’s benches, pewter chamber pots, quaint quilts by crazy Quakers, warped and wormy butter churns, coon skin fedoras, candle molds, kerosene lamps, wagon wheels, scrimshaw back scratchers, and other mementoes of simpler times, when white men were men and everybody else knew their place. The fact that almost every artifact surviving from early America is now under armed guard does not deter the Pre-Revolutionary Warlock from inspiring us to collect historically significant stuff. After all, says he, “History is happening all around us, right now!” as well as, “This could be worth a lot of money some day!” So, we buy, sell, save, revere, and treasure newspapers from the day Kennedy was shot, backstage passes to Eagles concerts, “All the way with LBJ” buttons, “Dump the Hump” bumper stickers, green Coke bottles, Billy Beer tins and other priceless reminders of “the way we were.” HISTORY: The Pre-Revolutionary Warlock is himself of lowly, albeit French, ancestry and came to the New World in hopes of bettering his condition. And he has done so: His ancestor was a little “La Fayette,” a smallish Fay who took the form of a humble French weremole. He would doubtless have rocked back on his hind quarters and flung out a paw in salute at his progeny’s achievements. The Warlock’s greatest achievement, so far, has been the oversubscription to the Franklin Mint’s Bicentennial limited offering of a lifesized, sterling silver reproduction of Lincoln’s distinguishing wart. SPOTTER’S TIPS: Look for the Pre-Revolutionary Warlock wherever the humorous sign “We Buy Junk/We Sell Antiques” is displayed. *The Pre-Revolutionary Warlock cherishes tradition. Polishes it. Auctions it off.