Pleiad Field Trip: Harley’s Antiques
By Sarah Granlund
Staff Editor

Have you ever noticed Harley’s Antique Mall on your way to Albion? Well here’s an inside look.

Jamelah and I first came upon European fashions. This was a fabulous section consisting of plastic Viking hats and lederhosen. They also had high heels and clogs made of animal fur. Witty comment here.

Moving on, we found a section called “time worthy new books.” They had medieval paper dolls and coloring books. They also had ice cream cone and watermelon stickers. Also present were Zorro masks and rubber Marge Simpson wigs. We couldn’t quite figure out how those were time worthy books, but whatever. Harley knows better than we do.

Next was the “unusual garden” section. In it was a product called Weed-ho! (exclamation point theirs). They also had things that gardeners would enjoy, like birdbaths and artsy-fartsy ceramic garden decorations.

Next was Hello Kitty! The entire wall was filled with pink and blue school bags. We walked away quickly.

Right next to the Hello Kitty section was Ireland. Not literally, of course. There were vests that stuffy old professors would wear, window clings, rune stones, and Rosemary Clooney CDs. Again, we didn’t see the relationship between Rosemary Clooney and Ireland.

Next was Jamelah’s favorite section, the candy aisle. Willy Wonka bars, complete with a golden ticket, Ritter Sport bars, Cadbury’s chocolate bars, and endangered species bars were the highlights. Apparently, if you buy the endangered species candy bar, some of the money goes to protecting the endangered species featured on the wrapper. I’m only assuming that they didn’t actually contain pieces of the endangered species. All of the candy was dramatically overpriced at any rate.

We dragged ourselves from the sparkling array of candy and finally found the antiques. Old books, Nazi memorabilia, swords, and Indian arrowheads comprised most of the antique section.

My personal favorite was the empty airplane-sized Sprite can priced at $2. I’m not really sure how that’s an antique, it must be because it was there.

If you like reading other people’s mail, then there’s a section just for you at Harley’s. There were lots of half-century-old postcards, complete with messages to lost loves and grandmothers.

Jamelah’s favorite postcard was one featuring a cartoon Indian running away from some white settlers. The message written on the back was: “I hope an Indian doesn’t run away with your Thanksgiving dinner. Much love.” We laughed at the un-enlightened racism.

We didn’t like Harley’s too much. It’s supposed to be an “antique mall,” but one section doesn’t really constitute a “mall” to me. And there weren’t very good antiques from what I remember from my antiquing days with my mom. If the candy had been cheaper, we probably would have liked it a lot more.