The author, John Marek, is a writer and executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.

During the first week of July 2019, I traveled around my native Ohio doing signings and readings of my new book, “Ocean of Storms.” I had a blast reconnecting with classmates I hadn’t seen in years and visiting some of my childhood haunts in and around my hometown of Port Clinton.

One afternoon while driving through the city of Sandusky, 20 miles across the bay from my old house, I decided to check out some of the places my parents used to take me. Finding them was a little tricky since it had been more than 40 years since I’d ventured into the old part of the city, and my recollection of street names and locations was a little bit hazy.

As it turned out, the years had done more than cloud my memory. Businesses had relocated, and some of the streets had changed course, veering off in unexpected directions or abruptly ending at a new apartment complex. One of the cherished venues of my youth was Toft’s Dairy. These days, Toft’s has dozens of dairy bar locations throughout Northwest Ohio, but back in the ’70s, if you wanted their excellent ice cream, you either had to seek it out at the grocery store or stop by their main location on Monroe Street.

I wasn’t surprised to find that they had built a brand new facility a couple of miles away on Venice Road – the original location was showing its age even when I was a kid – but was pleasantly surprised that the old building is still standing and has found a new life. It is inhabited now by Patina Creek, which sells upscale vintage and repurposed goods. I suppose that’s appropriate, a vintage building being repurposed for the repurposing of vintage goods. Patina Creek was closed when I visited, but I was able to look through the window at some of the incredibly cool things they had to offer: an antique Singer sewing machine, a weather-worn

block-and-tackle, stacks of peeling barn siding. I’m not sure I would have always been quite so impressed, though, as my appreciation for old, rough-looking things is a relatively new phenomenon; driven perhaps by the reality that I, too, am now old and rough-looking.

For the first 50 years of my life, I strived to keep everything I owned as new-looking as possible. If my car had a scratch, I’d immediately take to it with rubbing compound and a cloth. If the house paint cracked or peeled even an inch, I’d be out there with my brush touching it up. I couldn’t stand for anything to give the slightest appearance of wear or disrepair, and could not for the life of me understand people who purposely bought worn-looking home decor and rusty old signs and went out of their way to “antique” the paint on their house.

Offering a bit of amateur psychoanalysis, I believe my obsession with shiny and new came from my modest upbringing. My working-class parents couldn’t afford many new things, and we often had to make do with secondhand and hand-me-downs, so I equated “better life” with newness.

Things began to change when we redecorated our living room in a “lake house” style a few years ago. Janet and I couldn’t find a TV armoire that matched the look we were trying for. A friend of Janet’s, a talented artist, offered to paint an unfinished unit to match the decor. She created an absolute piece of art that also happens to look like it’s been underwater for about a hundred years. From there, spurred on, perhaps, by “American Pickers,” I graduated to vintage rusty metal signs for Red Man Chewing Tobacco (my Dad’s brand), repurposed garden tools and the silver-white patina of untreated cedar garden beds.

The other day I bought a faux-antique metal light fixture, complete with (fake) rust and (applied) dents. Entropy is the way of the universe. Everything falls apart. Instead of wasting energy fighting that, I’m striving to embrace it and find the beauty in it. And, after all, I am part of that everything.