2017 Recap (Finds Unseen)

I know that I haven't been blogging for the last few months, but I've been intending to blog.  That's something, isn't it?  I've got a folder full of photos to prove it.  That's right.  I found the time over and over again to take pics of stuff for the blog, but not to actually put them in the blog.  It's hard to be me sometimes, let me tell you.  Sigh.

For the next few posts. I'm going to dump as many of those pics out as I can to at least give a snapshot of the junking for the last half of last year.  That should give me a handful of quick posts and enough time to at least get the rest of the month planned out.  Plus, I know everyone likes finds posts.  Right?

Ready?  Let's go!

Let me start with the first finds of 2018 (or at least a teaser), courtesy of the New Year's Big Flea.  This was what Gran, my granny cart, looked like at the end.

Care to guess what's inside?  I'll give you a hint:

It's the start of a vintage clock radio collection!  I bought a couple from the guy, and he made me an offer I could not pass up on the rest.  There are nine all together.  That's the benefit of shopping on the last day of the Big Flea.  Tomorrow, I'm pulling my Christmas out of the booths.  I have a good idea about what to replace it all with.

If I remember/have time, I'll get some pics of everything else in the cart.  We'll see.  By the way, did you catch the helpful advice printed on one of those boxes?

Words to live by.

I found all this stuff in an alley during junk set out.  It looked to me like someone had cleaned out a relative's house and bagged it all up for the junk pick up. Someone had ripped open all the bags and scattered stuff everywhere.  (DON'T EVER DO THIS!)  I ran home and got a bunch of bags and filled them all up with stuff.  This is a pretty representative sample.  Bith the Jean Nate powder and the Stanback stuff had never been opened or used.  The Jean Nate made me think of this girl named Gina who sat across from me in my Trigonometry class during my junior year of high school.  She was always carrying on about Jean Nate stuff and how good it made her smell.  She would actually say things like: "Gee, I smell good today."  Isn't it odd the memories this stuff brings back?

Most of the stuff from this find was paper goods and ephemera.  There will be pics of some of it later.

When you find a cheap Thor helmet, you just gotta buy it.  Then take a selfie while wearing it.

The long, shaggy, slightly disheveled  look I'm rocking these days kind of fits with the viking motif, doesn't it?  For Odin and Asgard!

There's an old Democratic Club down the street from us that was gutted and renovated over the course of last year.  The dumpsters yielded wonderful salvage treasures like these.  I love the detail work on the hinges.  I found a dozen or so of them, and they've been popular items at the booth.

Sadly, I also found some awesome wooden drawers and two wonderful tables at this site.  They went straight to the booth, but I did set them all up for a nicely staged photo, only to have my phone battery give out before I could take it.  They all sold on the same day to the same person, so I never got a picture, but they were awesome.  Two of the drawers were the old cash drawers from the bar. 

In case you didn't know, a Democratic Club is a lot like a VFW or American Legion post, basically an open bar.  I had the pleasure of speaking at one in the 90's, when we were trying to get LGBT anti-discrimination laws passed here in town.  I learned that you don't ever go to a group to talk about anything, when they've invited you to come after the bar has been open for two hours, even if they do say they're Democrats.  I actually met the then-Democrat state Senator for that district (which included my neighborhood) who told me I could shove the information I had brought "up my ass."  A year or so later, he switched to the Republican Party.  Again, odd memories, huh?

Does anyone know what this is?  I thought it was some kind of jewelry holder, until I realized that there was nothing to keep it from sliding off.  I bought it because I thought it looked cool.

Half-Price Books does this traveling clearance event in several cities every year.  For the last three years, Louisville has been one of the sites.  They reserve a big room at the fairgrounds and fill it with stuff.  Nothing is over 2 bucks, and a bunch of stuff is less.  This was my cart at the last one.

Not everything at that sale is new or recent.  There plenty of vintage items, like this trivia game from the 70's.  The book below might be my favorite find from that sale.  I love kids books. I got it for the title--I'd never seen the word "Brimful" used before--and the Tasha Tudor art.

You gotta grab your finds where and when you find them.  All this stuff was a curb find when I was on the way to the bus stop one day.  I crammed it all in my booth bag and still managed to catch the bus on time!  The baskets were an appreciated find.  I use a lot of them for displays.

People seem to like these big family-style Bibles, so I  pick them up whenever I can find them cheap.

This is an odd, little display I made in my salvage booth.  Nearly everything in it was a curb find.

I think that will do it for this installment.  There will be more to come.  Now, if you will excuse me, I have some fresh buns in the fridge and I have to go get them out.

Ask Eddie Anything: The Junk Thing

Let's see now....

Where were we?

Oh, yeah.  I remember.

Linda asked:

"Questions, how did you get started in the junk business?"

A lot of this has been covered in other posts.  I think the best way to handle this is with some quick links to those posts for background, then I'll fill in the blanks in this post.

First off, all my posts with the "junking memories" label.  A couple aren't totally relevant, but the ones called "Family Ties" and "Leitchfield Flea Market" kind of lay the groundwork for my junk history.  I've kind of let the thread drop on this series.  I need to pick that up again.  I know I've got a couple of drafts for new posts somewhere in my list.

Another one to read is this one that I wrote after moving out of Dixie earlier this year.  It tells the story of my growth there.

Finally, here is the very first post featuring my very first booth, practically from the very first day.  You can see pics of a tubby, slightly more clean-shaven, pre-cancer Eddie in this post.  I got so wrapped up in doing the booth (plus a few other things) that I didn't blog again for a whole year!

Now that the groundwork has been laid, here are some of the finishing details.  Keith and I had been doing some heavy duty yard saling for a couple of years, usually getting stuff for the house, presents (for a long time almost every birthday and Christmas gift we gave was yard saled or thrifted), or stuff for us.  From time to time, I would grab something and say that when I got my booth, this would go in it.  I had a "someday booth" kind of like Laurie's beach house.

Right after we moved into the house, we went to our very first Peddlers Mall and I was in love with the idea.  People were selling junk!  I had junk!  I could sell my junk!  But it was just a dream I never did anything with.  A little later, the friend we used to have yard sales with took a booth in a secondhand store.  We kind of had a ringside seat at learning how to do it.  When I finally bit, I had an idea of what to expect.

What finally pushed me over the edge was a combination of factors.  I had talked with the store where my friend was, but gotten turned down, as that owner only took vendors he knew and selected.  I had also placed my name on a waiting list at a Peddlers Mall.  I was told they had a six month waiting list.  I never heard back from them.

I went to the opening of the Dixie Peddlers Mall and they had open spaces, which would mean no waiting list.  Anyone could sign up.  No funky vetting procedures.  Keith was away that weekend, and I wanted to talk to him before I actually took the plunge.

At that particular time, I needed an outlet badly.  I was trapped in a job that I was coming not just to hate, but to despise.  Too many reorganizations and shuffles.  An overly bloated top tier loaded with incompetent cronies.  A toxic atmosphere where secrecy, favoritism, and backbiting were the order of the day.  I had watched both a good friend and a supervisor become targets of scapegoating and witch hunting.  The supervisor got summarily dismissed.  A few months later, it became pretty obvious that my ass was in the target zone. 

I needed something to help me keep my sanity and restore a very badly-shattered self-esteem.  I had no idea how badly wounded I was by the whole experience until the day I finally got canned along with almost ten other people, barely a month after my mother died.  I was pretty shattered.

The booth kept me sane that last year of employment by giving me distraction--something that I could do where I only had to answer to myself.  I only had to please me.  I could do things my way and learn my own lessons.  With so much else out of my control, having something where I was making the decisions meant so much to me.  Any money that I made was a bonus. 

Doing well proved to me that I was not the incompetent fool that I was being made out to be by the people who kept changing the rules at work to make it so.  Having a place to put energy, initiative and creativity that I was not allowed to exercise at work allowed me to reinvent myself.

After I lost my job, grieving my mother and full of a lot of rage, I threw myself into selling junk.  Keith says it saved me.  I tend to agree.  Junk healed me, as melodramatic as that sounds.

There are the germs for two or three Junkin' Memories posts in this one.  Look for a flurry of those to come sometime in the future.  After I finish all the Ask Eddie Anything questions, of course. 

Monday Rambles

Thanks so much for all the kind words about the new booth set up in yesterday's post.  Believe it or not, much has already changed since I took those pics last week.  The black media rack in the back has sold, along with the MCM coffee table, and one of the bookshelves.  I stopped by on Saturday and dropped off a table and a loveseat, did a little shuffling, and tweaked it all a bit.  It's keeping me hopping, but it's also keeping the space fresh and different.

I have been having killer awesome sales since the beginning of month.  I'm back at the level I was operating on at Dixie, and am starting to surpass it.  In fact, I was telling Keith the other day that I'm not sure my stock of large items in storage is going to last all that long.  He just laughed at me, but he doesn't have the same long view on things that I do.  We'll see I guess.

The real test is coming up as the basketball finals come up.  With UK doing as well as they are, the ball games are going to take a hit on business.  It's inevitable here in that land of the basketball religion.  Right after that comes spring break in these parts, with the Kentucky Derby Festival activities starting up right after that.  Pretty much, the last week of March through the first week of May is a resale desert around here.  I'm waiting to see what happens.

Another big thank you goes to all of you who identified my odd little bookshelf as an encyclopedia shelf.  I appreciate your sharing your knowledge and experience.  I was familiar with the encyclopedia shelves with the little legs, but not the ones with the atlas slot on top.  Now I've got an extra bit of knowledge for my arsenal.  Every day that I can learn something new is a good day!  By the way, that shelf sold pretty quickly.  I'll be keeping my eyes out for more.

I had a hankering to buy lots of comic books this weekend, and that can only mean two things:  Comic Shop Sale and the Big Flea!  There was a HUGE fifty cent comic sale at the comic shop this weekend.  Instead of being a sidewalk sale, like they usually do, this one was indoors, which means that there were a lot more boxes of comics for sale.  Did I find some things to buy?

Judge for yourself.  (Pardon the less than perfect pics.  The lighting in my junk room stinks.  It's warm enough now that I need to move my picture taking operations outside again.)

That's a lot of Crying Freeman!

Both these boxes are full!

Just the kind of oddball stuff I like to read!

While I was getting ready to check out, I noticed a whole box full of trade paperbacks and graphic novels, which are usually marked down, but never to the fifty cent level.  I asked the cashier if they were part of the fifty cent sale and he said they were.  I just scooped up the whole box!

I did manage to find some things for me, in addition to the bulk I bought to resell.

Evil Eye by Richard Sala

This is a series I've been wanting to try.  I like the work of this artist.  He's got a kooky-horror vibe like a lot of others whose work I like.

The Spirit from DC Comics

This is another series I wanted to try.  They had most of the issues at the sale.  Honestly, new comics are way too expensive for me.  They have been for years.  I'm content to wait and scoop up cheap copies at overstock sales like this.  It does kind of limit my ability to make choices about what I want to read, but there is always lots of fun, interesting stuff to be found on the cheap, if you know where to look and how to hunt (which I do).

Superman Family by DC Comics

I also got a nice stash of these cheesy late 70's-early 80's Superman Family dollar comics.  I've got an inordinate fondness for these things.  My inner thirteen year old is kind of tickled.

Looks like Wonder Woman needs a new conditioner.

Speaking of my inner thirteen year old.  This is kind of a tribute to the stories he and I grew up reading.  They've nailed the retro style of the cover perfectly.  Can't wait to read it.  Look at that price!  Told you comics are too expensive these days.

I was determined to hit the big flea this weekend, because this is the first show they've had that wasn't on a holiday weekend in years.  They used to have a flea market just about every month, but in recent years have dwindled down to four major dates:  Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and New Year's.  I was so excited to see them expand a little bit that I wanted to go and show my support for the move, even if I didn't buy anything.  This particular flea market holds a lot of memories and significance for me.  I've attended these shows with Keith, my high school best friend, my college and seminary roommate, my dad, my brother, and my mother, after all.

Well, of course I bought some things.  I'll do another post about these in a few days.

What's in the granny cart?

I'm sticking close to home this week to try and get some projects done.  I'm planning to have a book sale in a couple of weeks, so I need to start getting ready for that.  I will venture out to go junking with my uncle tomorrow.  He has to stick close to home in the winter, due to his own health issues.  We've not seen each other since my birthday in November, so I am looking forward to that.

Speaking of health issues, my own follow up scans are coming up in a couple of weeks.  By the end of the month, I'll know what's going on and what the next steps are.  I'll let you all know something when I do.

Take care and have a good week!

Look What Else I Found!

This is one of those posts about finding something you've been hunting for a long, long time.  There must be something in the air, because SvelteStuff just recently posted about making a long sought after find just recently.  Those are the special days when you're out junking.  We've all got our personal "finds" list.  Every now and then, if we're lucky, one will turn up.

One turned up for me on Saturday.

Seriously.  How frikking cool is this?

That's a Playskool "Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" toy, named after the famous nursery rhyme.  I had the Fisher-Price version as a kid and loved it!  I played with it all the time.  I used to pretend the old woman was my grandmother.  Before you start thinking how sweet that is, let me tell you that (when I played) when the children were "bad," the old woman would tie them up in the shoe laces as punishment.  I don't recall that my grandmother ever did that, but then again I was never bad.  Weird, yes, but not mad.

I totally love the older F-P toys and look for them wherever I go.  Clearly, I am not alone in this, because they are really good sellers at the booth.  I've made some good F-P finds this year, but this is like the icing on the cake.  I've found one before, in all my years of searching.  Even though it's a Playskool and is a little different from the F-P version (the FP old woman doesn't wear a funky bonnet, for one), it's still close enough for me and brings back all the memories.

Speaking of the shoe lace, I'm psyched that this one has it!  It's the little bits like this that get lost over time.  I don't know if it's original or not, but I think it might be, on comparing some online photos.  It's half red and half white, which is really cool.  When it's laced into the shoe, it almost gives the impression that there are two different laces being used.

The funny looking kid on the end is actually a dog.  I think.

Best of all, it has the figures with it, including the old woman and her headgear.  I think the F-P version might have had more children and they were smaller.  There was undoubtedly a lot of overlap and copying between PS and F-P.  The different shapes on the boys' bodies would be matched up with the shapes of the windows. It was a multi-purpose learning toy!

Really odd looking dog

Now could that sweet face give anyone both without bread?

Totally rocking that bonnet!

For the record, my grandmother never had a bonnet like that, either.

I'm going to hang onto this one for a while, but will sell it in a bit.  I need to figure out how I want to do that.  Putting it out in the booth is an invitation for the figures to become "lost."  Got some pondering to do.

Plus, I want to bask in the glow of making one of those special finds!

100 Reasons I Love Being a Junker

Back in the day, there was this thing that went around the comics blogosphere where, at Valentines, folks posted lists of 100 things they loved about comics.  I never did this, but always wanted to.  I even made notes for a list, but never got around to doing it. I also made notes for a "!00 Things I Love about Living in Louisville" list.  I found that one the other day.  Probably 20% of the places named on it are now closed.  Sigh.

I got to thinking bout those lists a little while ago and decided that it was finally time (nearly a decade after the trend has died) to do one of my own.  Not about comics, but about junking.  (But there is some junking-related comics content.  Never stray too far from your roots, man.)

Of course, being me, I can't just list things.  I have to talk about a few of them and share some links.  And name-drop a bit.  If I didn't mention you on my list, it's not because you're not one of the things I love about junking, but because I ran out of room.  Or I forgot.  Or something.  Remember, there's always next year.

Happy Valentines Day, everyone!

 ONE HUNDRED THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BEING A JUNKER!

By Michael Edward Mitchell, age 48

1.  It's an excuse to shop!   C'mon, everyone!  Let's be honest about this one!

2.  It keeps me from being a hoarder!  At least that's the justification...

3.  Old comic books.  It's where I began.

4.  BOOKS!  I'll always have way too many.

5.  Vintage religious items.  I buy 'em.  I sell 'em.  I collect 'em.  I love 'em!

6.  Making new friends

7.  All the crew at Dixie Peddlers Mall!  Y'all rock!  Shout-outs to Dianna, Tiffany, Theresa, Elizabeth, Brenda, Richie, Jim and James!

8.  Thrifting:  My dad took me to my first DAV.  It was downhill from there!

9.  50% off day at the ACB thrift:  Happens every now and again.

10.  50% off day at Unique:  Happens on Monday holidays.  The crowds are crazy and it's impossible to get a cart.  I love it!

11.  50% off tags at SVDP:  Happens every month!  They use colored tags and every month a different color is half off!

12.  YARD SALES!!!!  Counting the minutes until Spring...

13.  CHURCH SALES!!!!  Keep reading for the ones I never miss.

14.  Going through your haul at the end of the day.  Bit by bit, it all adds up!

15.  Finding the "theme of the day"  Some days you see the same oddball item at every sale you hit.  Salsa kits.  Fondue pots.  Porta-Potties.  Who knows what you're gonna see?

16.  Buying junk from kids

17.  Blessed Sacrament Church Sale.  It always seems to be held the same weekend that one of the Derby footraces hopelessly tie up traffic in the neighborhood, but it's worth the effort to get there.

18.  Big representations of things that are small.  I love it when scale is played with and inverted.  Makes for interesting things and I like to by and sell interesting things.

19.   The Five Guys!

20.  All the other Peddlers Malls:  Louisville is blessed with an abundance of vendor malls.  They provide a nice alternative to the thrifts and the antique malls.  I love 'em all!

21.  Booths with good stuff cheap.  Don't forget to shop your neighbors!  I do it all the time.

22.  Small city and neighborhood sales.  Louisville has dozens of little incorporated cities within its borders.  It's a bit of a political and logistical headache, but many of them have their own designated citywide yard sale days!  I'm all for that!

23.  Vendors who don't take themselves so seriously.  We're in this to make some money, sure, but this is supposed to be fun!  I can make money in a dozen different ways and be unhappy while doing it.

24.  Broadway Baptist Winter Sale:  One of my favorites.  The last hour is half off and there is always a ton of stuff!

25.  Small representations of things that are big

26.  Old Hymnals

27.  All my peeps at Yard Sale Queen!  Holla!  Laying aside my lame attempts to sound hip and young, there's not a nicer online forum around!  I have learned so much in the few years I've been a member.  Just a super great group of people!

28.  Dixie Trading Post.  Home of my second booth.

29.  The Big Flea!  The original and still finest.  I've spent many a fine junking hour wandering those aisles.  When I am old and decrepit, I'll be paying young whippersnappers to push my chair up and down the aisles and carry my bags of stuff.

More list love after the jump!

Buying Comics

The only productive stop I made during last week's less than fruitful yard sale run was the comic store that I used to shop at.  I still consider it "my shop."  I started shopping there when I was a senior in high school, so old habits are hard to break.  The manager still knows me by name and talks to me every time I come by.  Mostly, my trips these days are to buy booth stock on sale days, get comic bags, or do some research.

Last weekend was their sidewalk sale, which is always a good source of stuff for me.  I try not to miss them.  They didn't have as much non-comic stuff out as they usually do (or maybe they did and I just missed it), so I mostly bought just comics.

Buying comics for the booth is kind of tricky, but I think it's one thing I've got down.  There are other dealers with comics in the Peddlers Mall, but I think I outsell them.  It's not unusual to find their comics left at my comic boxes.  People will leave them there after carrying them all over the mall, because my selection and prices are better.

There are three things (I think) that help me as a comic seller:

1.  I know comics and I have a pretty realistic view of them.
2.  I know what's selling in the bargain bins and boxes in the comic shops, comic shows, and places like Half-Price Books.
3. I have been the dude searching through the comic boxes at flea markets looking for treasures.

What this does for me is give me a selection of comics that's more varied with price points that are better than other sellers around me.  I don't have long boxes full of stuff from the 90's glut that no one wants.  I don't uniformly price my comics, either.  Everything is priced issue by issue.  I do have some standard price points, but my comics are priced according to a variety of factors.  My stock changes regularly too.  I add new comics every week.

It's a little more work for me, but I want to do it right (or at least what I consider to be "right').  I think it works for me, based on conversations that I have with people shopping for comics and conversations I overhear from shoppers looking through them.   I pretty much sell some comics every day, even when I don't sell anything else.  (It's the "anything else" part I gotta work on.)

Anyway, here's some of the stuff I got.  Just some.  I got tired of taking pics, so I quit.  I'm such a bad junking blogger.  The lighting in some of these is really off too.  Sorry about that.

I always have to get Silver Age Lois Lane comics when I can get them cheap.  The boxes that held my Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen comics came up missing when Keith and I moved in together, and I have been trying to rebuild that part of my collection ever since.  The one on the right is in rough shape, but for 50 cents, what do you expect?  These are keepers, but I think I might have that one on the right.  If that turns out to be the case, I'll toss it in the booth.

Stuff from the era of my heyday buying comics as a reader/fan.  I think the late seventies to mid eighties gets undervalued in terms of comics.  Stuff was well-written, well-drawn and a lot of fun.  I like to carry that stuff when I can find it.  I think there's some nostalgia out there for it.  The last Supergirl comic was a promo/giveaway thing done with Honda.  I love those kind of product-placement comics, so I'm keeping this one.

Series I always wanted to read when I was a kid.  Keepers, for the moment.

Nineties crap.  So much stuff was pumped into the market in the mid to late 1990's, that you have to be careful with this stuff.  There's a lot of it out there in the secondhand non-comic market.  Dealers will buy a long box of crap for 60 bucks at an auction and think they're going to clean up because the comics are 20 years old and everyone knows old comics are worth a lot of money.  What they don't know is that what they're buying is stuff the original owner thought was going to be worth a mint when it was published.  After that never panned out, they took it to the auction with a bunch of other old junk they didn't need any more.

There's so much of the so-called "hot" comics of that era out there, that you can get burned if you're not careful.  If it's selling in quarter and fifty cent bins at comic shops, then it's really not going to bring more than that in your flea market booth.  What I try to do is limit myself either to getting whole series cheaply then bagging them to sell as a set or else just stick to special issues--basically anything with more pages than a normal issue.  I always liked to feel like I was getting more for my comic money, so I like to pass that feeling on to my shoppers as well.

Stuff from this century.  Again, I try to stick to larger than usual special issues and such.

Major "event" comics from this era.  I hate the whole concept of "event" comics and crossovers and such, but the idea is here to stay and it ain't going nowhere.  When I can get them cheap (that's my mantra), I'll sell a whole series as a set.  Otherwise, I'll stick with the odd issue or special.  Believe it or not, there are buyers like me who would bypass the thing at full price in a heartbeat, but check it out when it's super-cheap. 

Another thing I always look for is what they used to call the "prestige format" (comics with cardstock covers and square spines).  It's another way of offering more bang for my customers dollar.  All I have to do is find them cheaply enough.  (There's that mantra again.)  I wish I had been able to buy all four issues of this one, then I could have sold it as a set.  Oh well.

I know it seems kind of hodge-podgey, but that's what I'm going for, a variety of things from a variety of eras.  There are comic readers who have been priced out of the market who still wouldn't mind catching up on things, if they don't have to pay an arm and a leg.  They don't care if it's the hot event from three years ago.  It's new to them.  They're one of the groups I try to cater too.

Like I said, it seems to be working.  I have a good sell through and turnover.  I also have an audience of regulars who seek my stuff out.  I love selling comics because I still love comics.  I have fond memories of being that kid at the flea market, digging through the boxes in search of back issues.  I remember the thrill of finding a treasure for 25 or 50 cents.  I want to provide that same feeling to someone else.  All I have to do is buy carefully and find things cheaply enough.

Junking Memories: End of an Era?

Last week, I talked about a barn sale for a thrift that apparently has closed.  I say "apparently" because no formal announcement has been made, but the store web page says "closed until further notice."  The fact that they have cleared out their storage garage so that it can be torn down kind of lends a little more credence to the "closed" idea.

I'm kind of bummed about it.  Losing a thrift is always sad, even though this one, of late, has been pretty low on my list.  It wasn't always that way, but more on that in a minute.  I think Louisville is pretty thrift-poor for a large city.  We mainly have only the "name brands"--Goodwill and the like.  We have none of those little church-run thrifts staffed by little old ladies who mark things for fifty cents.  Heck, we're even poor in the "name brand" department.  Salvation Army closed its stores here a couple of years ago.

When this thrift first opened, it kind of filled that need for a little church-run thrift.  It's connected with a Catholic children's home, and in the old days was run by a couple of nuns and a bunch of volunteers, most of whom were older folks.  They had several rooms in three different buildings that were just crammed with all kinds of donations.  It was like they took anything that was offered to them.  It was a wonderful jumble of all kinds of stuff.  You could literally find anything there.

Mostly, the stuff wasn't priced.  You'd gather your armload and sister or one of the volunteers would price it, usually for a dollar or less.  They had this awesome section of religious articles that I would beeline for and load up!  I wasn't selling in those days just hoarding collecting, but it was a dream.  Room after room of fascinating awesomeness.  Cheap awesomeness.  To say that I loved it would be an understatement.

The one problem with the place was the hours.  It was only open Monday and Thursday mornings, along with one Saturday morning a month.  It really made hitting the place rather difficult.

Slowly but surely, the place started to change.  First they moved the bulk of it into one small house.  Then, it started to become less and less cluttered.  Then, the price tags started appearing.  By this time,  I was selling.  The prices weren't bad.  It was just a shock to see them.

Somewhere along this time, they hired a manager or some kind of staff person.  They got moved into a smaller place.  There was less selection.  They adopted regular hours.  Prices went up.  Ironically, as it became more accessible, everything about the place that made it unique and worth going to kind of dropped away.  I used to try to get there every chance I could make my schedule work.  By the end, I was hardly going at all.

I know that some other stuff happened.  There was a fire that closed it down for a while, but it opened back up.  Now, I just don't know what they are going to do with it.  It's kind of sad.  Even if it does reopen, it'll never be the way it was in the beginning.  I'll definitely miss what it used to be.

What's in a Name?

This is my 1000th post, something I never thought I would reach.  It's only taken ten years to get her, after all!  In honor of that, I wanted to do something a little more personal.  I hope you enjoy it.

My full name is Michael Edward Mitchell.  Some of you all already know that, as I have used it a few times here on the blog.  I've been "Eddie" derived from the "Edward" part for my whole life, however.  It's what I was meant to be called.  Never "Mike" or even "Michael."

When my mom was nearly a teenager, her youngest brother, my uncle Mike, was born.  Since both of my grandparents worked, and it was the fifties, Mom usually had to take care of him.  The story goes that she decided during these times that she would name her first boy "Michael" after him.  And so I became a namesake.

The middle name thing came along later.  Mom said that she wanted at first to name me "Michael Andrew."  The reason she didn't was because she didn't like the name "Andy."  Since there was already one Mike in the family, she didn't want to call me by that name, so she needed a workable middle name.  Rather than "Andy" she would have called me "Drew."  She eventually decided that it was going to be hard enough to get people used to using my middle name.  A less common nick name from that middle name might even be more problematic, so she scrapped the idea and went with "Edward."

She said it was just a name she liked, but we found out years later that my great-grandmother had a brother named Edward, so it's actually a family name.  If had been a girl, I would have been "Sara Dorine," two more family names--Dorine was my grandmother's name.  Mom always said that she was so sure that she was carrying a boy that she referred to me as "Eddie" just about from the moment she found out that she was pregnant.

My uncle Mike was a teenager when I was born.  We've talked a lot about how we share some of the same memories of my grandparents in ways that are different from everyone else, because we were both kids.  He was one of my first heroes when I was very young.  I loved for him to pick me up and play with me.  One of the good things that came out of my mother's passing is that we have gotten to be close again.  He lives across the river from me, and we both have booths in the same Peddlers Mall.  We get together and share stories about junk and go junking and stuff.  It's pretty cool.

As far as I was concerned, my name was "Eddie."  I never found out about this "Michael" thing until I was in first grade.  There I was sitting in the gym with my mom and all the other kids and their parents.  They were calling off names, and kids were going off with teachers.  They called this "Michael Mitchell" dude, and my mother gets up and starts walking away!  WHAT??  She finally turns to me and says:  "That's you.  Come on."  An identity crisis at 5 years old.  How cruel is that?

I had a running battle with my name for years after that.  I just wanted to be "Eddie."  But on the first day of school every year, I was "Michael."  Every time I went to the doctor, I was "Michael."  Worse yet was when people would take shortcuts and just assume they could call me "Mike" because of the "Michael" part.  That's. Not. My. Name.

My biggest problem with "Michael" was that I could not spell it correctly.  For years, I got it wrong, prompting my mother to fuss and bemoan my illiteracy.  I could do fifth grade math in the third grade, but I could not spell my own name.  Where had she failed?  It didn't help things much when I would try to point out that from my point of view, my name was "Eddie" and it would be so much simpler if everyone just got used to that.  Then I would get the story about where my name comes from.

Somewhere around the sixth grade, I figured out that if I spelled "Michael" correctly, when I looked at it backwards, the first four letters would spell "Leah."  Don't ask me how I came up with that, but it worked.

When I graduated high school and saw my name printed out on my cards, I had a revelation about how cool my name actually is.  Look at it:

Michael Edward Mitchell

It's wonderfully symmetrical.  You can draw a line right through the middle of it, and the are the same number of letters on either side.  The first and last name are derivations of each other, so the sort of mirror each other.  They have the same number of letters and start and end with the same letter.  It really is pretty cool.  It sounds awesome when it's all called out, too.

Since college, I've toyed around with using various versions of my name.  I did "M. Edward" for a while.  That's even still my official signature.  I tried "M.E." and also "Michael Edward" which I liked because it sounds really pretentious.  In fact, whenever I get business cards, I put the whole thing on there.

In every day life, I'm pretty content to be just plain ole "Eddie."  It fits.  But never "Ed."  The only two people who ever called me that are both gone now.  It's kind of reserved for their use.  I've stopped fighting the "Michael" thing and will come meekly when called.  I do, however, make every attempt to squeeze my whole middle name in when filling out forms, no matter how few spaces they give for the middle initial.  Sometimes, the broader culture needs reminding that the first name is not always the "default" name.

ROAD TRIP!

Saturday, we loaded up the car and headed out on a brief road trip.  At my grandfather's funeral, I noticed that the flowers on my parents' graves were really weatherbeaten and tattered.  The cemetery is not far away from Louisville, but it's far enough that we don't get over there very often.

This is the kind of thing we could have done in a day trip--just pop down there and back--but I wanted to make a bit of an adventure out of it.  I planned for us to take the old highways, rather than the parkway, and hit the flea markets and thrifts along the way.  I also got us a totally unnecessary hotel room, because I wanted to make it an overnight trip.

Usually by this point in the summer, I've gone camping with Keith at least once.  With the chemo, I'm just not up to roughing it, but I really wanted to get away with him. So, even though my old hometown is less than two hours away, I still got us a room.

Unfortunately the junking was not good.

First stop was an antique mall that I've always wanted to stop in.  It was totally not my kind of place.

 Seriously not my kind of place.  With prices to match, I might add.  Although I did see a couple of cool things, like these replicas of the Chinese terracotta warriors.

I even made a new friend, although I'm not quite sure if her intentions are honorable.

I also saw one of those old-timey comic book racks like they used to have in store when I was a kid.  I've always wanted one!  It's kind of sad to see the dilapidated older comics sagging out of it.  Those are not the most practical means of long-term storage and display for comics, because they don't provide adequate support.  You would think someone who is trying to get $28 or $52 out of a comic would know that.  Just about everything on the rack was really ratty from being stored there too long.

I was most looking forward to hitting the Bowling Lanes Flea Market.  I have fond memories of shopping there as a kid.  Sadly, my memories from Saturday are not as fond.  I only bought like two or three things.  

The lot where the flea is used to be home to a bowling alley.  All that's left now is the sign.  When I was a kid, the building was still there.  People used to set up all over the parking lot.  There are still outdoor set-ups today, but there weren't very many on Saturday.  I think it might have been the heat or forecasted storms.

There's also an indoor component, which was totally missable.  Every booth was a wreck, and over half the vendors weren't even present in their spaces.  It was really disappointing.  As usual, at these indoor/outdoor kinds of set ups, the best shopping was found outdoors.  There just wasn't much of it.

Since shopping had been so light, I decided to hit a vendor mall.  Pickings were slim there too.  How slim?  This slim:

To be honest, I did put a couple more things in the cart right after I took this pic.  Still wasn't much of a haul.

I did come across this great new idea for booth security and theft deterrent that I cannot wait to try in mine.

There were probably some bargains in this bin, but I'll never know.  I'm all about the digger booth, but not when I have to bend over with my butt in the air!  Ain't happening.

I did see Donna while I was there.

After this we hit a thrift that wasn't all that thrifty.  We have a couple of these kinds of places in Louisville.  They call themselves "upscale resale."  They're very selective in what they accept for donations, so their prices are way out of line with the typical thrift experience.  I did find a few things, but I don't think I'll be heading back.  I give the ones in Louisville wide berth too.

After a nice drive through the country, we finally hit my old hometown.  We stopped first at a local vendor mall, where again I bought very little, but I did get flashed.

Then we headed to the cemetery (more on that in a few days), and checked into the hotel.  I was kind of glad I had made a reservation, as we were both pretty wiped by that point.  We had a nice Mexican dinner (my favorite), then retired for the evening.  I kind of overextended myself and did way too much walking.  I could hardly move once I got settled in a comfy chair.

The next morning was lovely.  The hotel's free breakfast included fresh pancakes, which was nice.  After we enjoyed a nice leisurely breakfast, we had a long talk together in which.....

Keith proposed and I accepted!

After all these years, he's going to make an honest woman out of me!  We're still working out the details.  We want to do it in a state where same-sex marriage is legal, with an eye to retiring there, if the rest of DOMA is not overturned in the next few years.  No matter what you may hear on the news, key components of the law are still in effect.  I'll probably have more to share about all of this as it develops.

Junkin' Memories: The Big Flea Market

This year, they're down to four.  That really bothers me.  Not that long ago, there was one a month.  I think it's due to the economy, which means that they'll be bouncing back as things improve.  I hope so.  The Kentucky Flea Market, which I lovingly call "The Big Flea Market," has been a part of my junking life for decades now.

I cannot remember for sure when I first came to Louisville to go to the big flea market, which is held at the state fairgrounds.  I know I was aware of it when I was in high school, because I remember reading an article about it in the paper.  I know I was going by the time I was in college.  One of my roommates was from the same part of the state as me, so we would ride home together for the holidays and such.  I made a couple of trips to the flea market with him and his family then.

It was when I was in college that I went one time with my dad when I was really sick.  We made it through like two rows and I had to leave.  He called my mom, and the consensus was that I must be really bad sick if I couldn't stay at a flea market!  Buncha comedians in my family.

I know that I've been a regular at the big flea market ever since I moved to Louisville.  It was a really wonderful deal in those days--all kinds of sellers selling all kinds of stuff at really good prices.  I've bought tons of comics there over the years, plus books, CD's, religious articles, and just general fun stuff.  (Not to mention the occasional practical item.) 

The flea market was a monthly deal in those days.  If there was a holiday in the month, then it was held on the holiday weekend.  If there wasn't, then it was usually the last weekend of the month.  Like I said earlier, I think they were still having monthly shows as late as last year.  The holiday shows were the ones to be sure to attend.  Lasting four or five days (depending on what day of the week the holiday fell), they would often fill up two wings of the fairgrounds exhibit space.  That's a heckuva lot of room!

In the past few years, the two wing shows have fallen off considerably.  It finally settled into a pattern where the Labor Day and New Year's Day flea markets would take up one wing, plus an extra hall.  Not quite as much room as before, but still considerable.  The extra hall is dedicated to antique sellers and there's always some awesome stuff during those shows.

For at least a decade before she died, my mother and I would make a trip to either the Memorial Day or the 4th of July flea market.  It was one of our traditions.  Going with Mom was about the people watching as much as the shopping, but we did a lot of that too.  She had opinions about everyone and everything and didn't mind sharing them.  We could have a ball just sitting on a bench watching the world pass us by.

The entire thing is run by one family-owned company that also does flea markets in Indianapolis and Knoxville.  They used to do one in Nashville as well, but discontinued it a while ago.  A few years back, the man that started the company passed away, but his family is carrying on.

I'm kind of surprised and a little disappointed to see them cut back so much this year.  I know part of it is the economy, which is hurting both vendors and customers.  The presence of so many vendor malls and flea markets here in town can't be helping either.  People don't have to wait for a special weekend any more.  They can come on over any time and get their bargain shop on!  It's kind of ironic to be involved in a retail system that might be hurting the flea market I have loved so much over the years.

Another factor that doesn't help is the fairgrounds itself.  They've let some of their fees and things get really out of hand.  It costs eight bucks to park now!  Outrageous.  When I actually go to one of the shows with an antique wing, I have to plot to get around the parking fee.  Those are the shows I am most likely to be looking for merchandise, so I need to not pay 8 bucks to park because I don't want to have to add that in to the cost of the items.  I've ridden my bike.  We've parked somewhere else and walked in.  I've had Keith drop me and the granny cart off outside the gate and pick me up later.  I've flapped my arms and flown over the fence.  (Okay..maybe not that last one...but if I thought it would work, I'd give it a try!)

I'm remaining hopeful that, as soon as it is feasible, the big flea market will increase the number of shows again.  I may not be able to go to all of them like in the good old days, but I'll definitely go to two or three a year!  Old habits die hard.  Whether shopping for me or for a booth, I'll always look forward to a visit to the big flea market.

Junkin' Memories: Leitchfield Flea Market

I started early as a junker.  I didn't realize it at the time, of course, but I was on my way by the time I was in high school.  I may have only been hunting comic books at the time, but I was hunting something.  Everybody's gotta start somewhere, you know.

There's an awesome rural tradition that's particularly prevalent in the South, the local flea market.  At one point in time, most small towns had them.  Many still do today.  Not to mention all those "wide spots on the side of the road" kinds of flea markets.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a town that had a flea market every Wednesday.  It was down at the stockyards, so we called our junking trips "going to the stockyards."  When I was younger, I went with my mom, who went from time to time.  When I was a teen, I would walk down there with my best friend.  We went every week.

It's pretty common for these kinds of flea markets to be associated with stock yards or produce markets.  A lot of them grew out of the idea of the "market day" when everybody brought their produce or livestock in to sell.  These days also became a day for peddlers to hark their wares, and junking was born!

Back in the day, my main objective was comic books.  The flea market was a way to fill in holes in my collection and also find older issues without spending a lot of money.  When you're into comics, you have to always remember to have some money on hand to get the newest arrivals each week.  That means you can't spend too much on older stuff, especially if you're a kid.

There was one guy that we used to buy from just about every week.  I remember going to another flea market with my dad and seeing him there.  It was kind of shocking to see him at "some other" flea market.  It was my first exposure to the idea that there were people who would go from place to place selling their stuff.

One week, this guy was selling out his stock.  All the comics were ten cents each!  I was supposed to meet my dad there, but I got there first.  I ended up borrowing money from my grandfather (who conveniently wandered by)  until my dad got there.  That was a close one!

That flea market holds a lot of good memories for me.  It's probably where I cut my teeth as a junker, even though I didn't realize it at the time. I'm glad to say that it is still there, every Wednesday, just like always.  Not even the presence of a Super Wal-Mart nearby has put a stop to it. 

Having Fun Finding

There used to be a restaurant in town that was known as much for its kitschy decor as the food.  It closed not too long ago in the midst of a labor dispute.  I had mixed feelings about the place.  The decor was fun.  Some of the food was pretty good, if a little pricey.  It wasn't one of my regular haunts, but I did go there from time to time.

One of the things the place was known for was having toys and doo dads on the tables to amuse customers while they waited for their food.  Usually, it was small plastic animals, toy cars, crayons and the like.  Whenever I ate there, a few of them somehow made their way into my backpack.  Never quite sure how that happened, but it did.

The last couple of years the place was open, they added on a gift shop.  One of the items they sold was an hourglass kind of thing filled with plastic bits.  Hidden in the bits were all kinds of little toys and items.  The object was to shake the hourglass and make the different objects surface.  You were supposed to find as many of them as possible.  This became a pretty popular table toy.  If someone really got into it, they could buy one on the way out in the gift shop.  Pretty clever.

Anyway, I was in Goodwill the other day and I found two of them for sale!  They went home with me, of course.

Okay, so they're more like cylinders than hourglasses.

Let's see what we can find!

Here's a star!

A lot of the hidden objects were these little cubes with letters, etc. on them.

Forgot to do the crappy cell phone pic alert, didn't I?

There's a list on one end, so you can keep track of your finds.

Scotty dogs are turning up in several of my posts these days.

  Okay, maybe only two of my posts.  but that's enough to declare a trend, isn't it?

One of the things I like about junking is discovering bits and pieces from local places that are no longer there.  For some of these places, these bits and pieces are the only record they ever existed.  It's cool to preserve long-ago memories.  I'd never thought about this from the perspective of places that have more recently passed from the scene.  Isn't life interesting like that?