Knuckles

PBS's "Antiques Roadshow" is coming to Chatta- nooga in July, and as usual they're sending out a request for local submissions of furniture they might consider dropping into their maelstrom.

For screenings, they don't do tall clocks, so our Simon Willard is out. And they don't do "smalls," so there go our daughters-of-Victoria portraits on their brass Christmas card, from 1858. Nor our Chinese cinnabar box from the 1500s. If we want any of those commented on by the Roadshow experts, we'll have to carry them into the cyclone at the convention center.

But "large furniture" . . . there's the ticket. They pack and ship it to the crowd scene. And there are several things of ours they might be interested in, including the settee from the entry hall, which we got at auction at Leslie Hindman's gallery in Chicago in the early '80s, as I recall the date.

Maybe the Roadshow folks will give us better dates all around.

And I look at those knuckles, and know they can knock their way anywhere they want to go.