Proud to Be An Old Soul

Junior Noah Marsh is a skinny 17-year-old clad in a gray American Eagle sweater. He weaves his way through a diverse crowd: young 20-somethings in beanies and skinny jeans, smoking cigarettes; confused-looking couples with brand new babies; artistic people with thin-wired glasses and fancy coffees. He is on yet another antiquing mission.

He paces through the hallways of Good Juju, a brightly-colored antique shop found in the heart of the West Bottoms. The shelves are lined with brittle, handpainted tea cups and old-fashioned soda bottles from the 50’s, still filled to the brim.

He makes his way past the wall of cream 1960’s refrigerators and turns the corner when he sees it: a spotless, smoky gray portable Westinghouse TV from the 1960’s.

Noah slowly picks up the 30-lb. television, examining every detail.

“I can’t believe it still has the original cord,” he says with fascination.

Wide-eyed, Noah sets down the TV and pulls out his iPhone. He does some quick research using his Google app to assure that the $40 price tag is fair. After finding similar items sold for similar prices, he is assured. He returns to the TV, picks it up by the handle, and makes his way to the register. The TV is his newest addition to his collection of more than 30 antiques.

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Noah has always been one for collecting. Money, acorns, snowglobes, Pokemon cards. But it wasn’t until his parents dragged him down to the West Bottoms for a shopping trip his freshman year that his eyes were opened to all of the antiquing possibilities.

For Noah, antiquing runs in the family. His grandparents own an antique shop near their home in Maryland, and Noah’s father, Kevin, grew up around antiques. However, Kevin says that he never felt that he influenced Noah in a way that would make him get into the hobby. Somehow, he picked it up on his own.

“I don’t think I ever did anything that would overtly make him want to [antique],” Kevin said. “Maybe it’s a genetic flaw or something.”

Even though Noah is a part of varsity tennis, has a full AP course load and is an active StuCo member, he is glad to have found something to keep himself even busier. Since that summer before his sophomore year when he started antiquing, Noah has seized every opportunity he can to immerse himself in the antiquing culture. Every first weekend of the month when the West Bottoms opens their antique sales he makes the 20-minute drive to scope out the latest merchandise. Whenever he drives past a garage sale or an estate sale he makes sure to stop by for 20 to 30 minutes. If he’s ever curious about an item, he spends time researching on Craigslist and through Google searches.

“I feel like everyone should have a hobby, and mine’s just antiquing,” Noah said. “I like to just constantly be doing something.”

Even though none of Noah’s friends or family really expected Noah to pick up antiquing as a hobby, none of them were all that surprised when they found out he’d become obsessed. Between Noah’s quirky personality and obsession with trinkets, antiquing seemed appropriate.

“I was just like, ‘that is so typical of Noah Marsh to like antiquing’,” Noah’s friend and fellow antiquer Emma Matthews said. “It didn’t surprise me at all.”

Although Noah has admitted that he would go to the West Bottoms alone if nobody else could join him, almost every time he has gone down he has brought friends with him.

“It always seems like he’s escorting people around,” Kevin said. “He’d much rather do that with a friend or some girls. Of the four, five or six times he’s [gone to the West Bottoms] I think he’s taken his [guy] buddies down once, and other than that it’s been these girls that wanna go and have him show them around. So that works out pretty good for a kid his age.”

Matthews, being one of the girls who frequently makes the antiquing trips alongside Noah, has had quite a bit of experience in the antiquing world since going to the West Bottoms each month.

“[The first time Noah took me antiquing] I was just like, ‘I feel so cultured right now’,” Matthews said. “I would never think to go antiquing. Seeing all the old stuff, it made me kind of wish that right now, in this time, we had cool little gadgets like that.”

While most of his girl friends are more focused on finding antiques like old picture frames that pertain to their Pinterest projects, Noah always keeps an eye out for things he considers more “manly”.

“A pocket watch is the epitome of classy men jewelry,” Noah said. “Men can’t really have many things besides maybe sunglasses, a wristwatch and other things.”

Besides classic menswear pieces like cufflinks and watches, Noah’s other favorite type of antique is old electronics. From cameras to projectors to radios, Noah loves thinking about how people did things that most of us can accomplish by pulling out our smart phones nowadays.

“I think part of him likes things that are not digital like so many things are now,” Kevin said. “I think that’s why he’s fascinated by record players and radios, because all the music now is MP3s and iPods, and I think he likes the fact that there used to be just manufactured, cool-looking devices that did all the things that are digital now.”

According to Noah’s mother, Shelly, another contributing factor to Noah’s fascination with old mechanical devices is his affinity towards math and science.

“His mind works in a fashion that is very scientific and mathematical, and he likes to think about how [the electronics] work,” Shelly said. “And I think it also interests him to take it apart and see what’s going on inside.”

If nothing else, Noah says one benefit antiquing has given him is the art of starting conversations. Whenever he meets new people and the situation is uncomfortable, the first thing he’ll do is start talking about his hobby.

“At cotillion dances when I first meet someone from Shawnee Mission South or North or something, I’ll shake their hand and be like ‘I’m Noah Marsh, I’m a junior at East, and I collect antiques.’” Noah said. “And the often response to that is ‘oh…so do my grandparents!’”

Shelly says that while most teenagers might take offence to things like the ‘grandparents’ comment, Noah has mastered the art of self-deprecating humor. He acknowledges that finding a 16-year-old who antiques for fun isn’t typical, and some people find it weird. Ultimately, Noah couldn’t care less about what those other people think.

“[Noah] is very confident,” Shelly said. “He doesn’t really think too much about what other people think about him. He just really is kind of putting himself out there and letting him be which is pretty cool for someone of that age.”

According to Noah’s parents, his work ethic is yet another element of his personality that makes him such a good fit for antiquing. Whenever he buys antiques that require a little restoration, there’s no room for laziness.

“[Noah] is very focused,” Kevin said. “When he decides he’s interested in something whether it’s tennis, whether it’s antiques, whether it’s making wooden bow ties, he becomes very focused on making sure that he does the best he can.”

Between his drivenness, his commitment and his passion, Shelly and Kevin both admit to having a son with an old soul. If anything, they think that makes Noah that much greater.

“Most people who meet him will say ‘he’s kind of an old man stuck in a kid’s body’,” Shelly said. “He just really thinks differently than most kids and I think that’s the part that makes him most interesting.”

View a video of Noah talking about his antiques here: