Finding Faith ... in a chance thrift store find

This horse-drawn beer wagon set is so important and here is why ...

When I was a kid, my father had a collection of horse figurines that numbered in the hundreds. It was a collection that his father had started before him way back in 1946, and then handed down to him. The collection resided at my grandparents' home, which was conveniently located across the street from our house. And then in my later years growing up, my father had moved into that house after a divorce from our mother. But being he lived directly across the street, I still saw my fair share of the horse cabinet.

"The Horse Cabinet," as it was known in our family because of its importance, is a towering, mythical legend in our family. And it reality, it actually is a site to behold. The original cabinet was much a two-piece china hutch, just that both the top and bottom pieces were open faced and covered in sliding in glass doors. The cabinet stands about 7 feet tall, and probably was about 6 feet wide. The measurements are a little fuzzy in my mind as I actually haven't seen "The Horse Cabinet" in more than a decade.

After my father passed, "The Horse Cabinet" transferred ownership to my brother who is six years older than I am, and he hasn't been in a position to have the cabinet set up in some time. So it essentially has been mothballed, but will hopefully be coming out of retirement soon in an agreement that we made with my brother. We'd help him retrieve it from his former home in Montana, if we could set up the cabinet in our family rec room in our basement. He agreed. ... And I cannot tell you how thrilled I am about that!

"The Horse Cabinet" as it existed in the 1980s.

It's hard for me to convey the meeting of "The Horse Cabinet," but it's probably the closet thing we have to being a family heirloom in our family. ... And unfortunately, I don't even know the full history of "The Horse Cabinet" as I was the youngest of nine kids, and much of the family lore was passed down long before I was ever old enough to absorb any of it. ... But none of that matters, as I still the "feel" of how important "The Horse Cabinet" is to our family.

So imagine my surprise on Saturday when Shelley, my wife, and I wandered into a Boys & Girls Ranch thrift store in Fargo, and the very first item I saw tucked in a cardboard box in a glass display case was a cast iron horse-drawn beer wagon. ... It stopped me dead in my tracks, and as I excitedly pointed it out to my wife, I exclaimed, "This is exactly like one of the horse sets that is in 'The Horse Cabinet!'" ... Thankfully Shelley shares my enthusiasm for the horse collection even though she's never even seen it but in photos!

I told her that I wanted to wait by it until I could get a clerk to come take it out of the case for me. She went ahead with looking around the store, and I patiently waited for 10 minutes until the clerk was able to retrieve the box for me.

The horse-drawn beer wagon set I found at a thrift store Saturday.

Unbelievably, as I gingerly removed the pieces from the box, the full realization hit me that all of the pieces were there! ... And none of them were broken! All eight horses were still intact; the two riders on the wagon were there; as was the white dog who rode shotgun on the seat next to them; the wagon was in pristine condition; and finally all of the metal beer kegs were there! The only blemish was that several of the gold link decorative chains that are supposed to run the length of the horses are broken. But I might even be able to fix those!

After ensuring that everything was in order, I checked out the price, which was $49.99. ... My eyes grew even bigger at that point because I have seen similar sets run into the hundreds of dollars. This was a treasure both on a personal level and as an antique, and I couldn't have been more excited.

I took the box as carefully as I could over to where Shelley was shopping the clothes, and I shared it with her. She was just as excited for me. And on the way home, it was Shelley who suggested that the horse set should take a place of prominence in our living room on our vintage church pew. Saying that I was tickled pink was an understatement.

As soon as we made it home, it took great restraint to carry in all of the bags from the day before I ran into the living room with my horse set and began setting it up. The set's driver's reins had gotten tied up in the horses, and so it took some time to untangle all of it. And then I had to place the other figures and the kegs on the cart. And at some point I realized that Shelley had entered the room. "You look like a little kid setting up their new choo-choo train set or something," she said with a laugh. ... I answered back that I DID feel like a kid with a new toy. ... And she really had no idea how that horse set magically transported me back 35 years in the blink of an eye.

Maybe more importantly, that chance find, on a day where Shelley and I had to talk ourselves into going out because just minutes before that important find in the thrift store, we had been sitting in our recliners at home, debating whether we wanted to go out at all, has led to a larger discussion. And as of now it looks like that "The Horse Cabinet" will be coming home to our house sometime soon. I'm not counting my chickens just yet, as there is a lot that still has to happen before that comes to fruition. But for now, each night, as we relax in our living room, I get a front row seat to see my new horse-drawn beer wagon, something that is so symbolic of my youth. ... And I couldn't be more thrilled!