Listen, there is no such thing as a peak at the Webb Road Flea Market. It is a combination of tail gates, tables, and sheds of unbelieveable opportunities.
Even though the reason we had stopped was so that I could look for blue bottles who could resist lingering over this little six week old puppy. I had never seen one quite like it before. The owner said, "he's a miniature dappled silver dauchund. The runt of the litter. He won't grow to more than 8 pounds."
He looked like a nature's mistake. I was smitten. Jim was not. He won.
Let me tell you there were no blue bottles in sight anywhere. I was getting tired out and discouraged after trudging what seemed like miles along aisles of booths and tables when Jim rang my phone. "Look over here."
Jim had spotted these blue Milk of Magnesia bottles tucked into a box along with a bunch of clear, green and brown bottles. They were not what I had set out to find. And the preponderance of Milk of Magnesia says something about the prevalence of dyspepsia in the folks I grew up with - but what really prompted me to buy them - they reminded me of my Grandmother, her medicine cabinet and her administering hand. Granny believed in Milk of Magnesia. I can still remember gagging before the spoonful of thick white liquid ever reached my lips. I doubt these will be a part of my blue bottle tree - but I need to make a sculpture for a show that is coming up - they may be exactly right for that.
We made several other stops. The flea market we had been to on Hwy 64 E. several years ago turned out to be almost empty by noon and so it was not worth the time on the highway.
I bought a small vase for a dollar from a Boy Scout parking lot sale and we stopped at an antique store in Ramseur - mostly because we liked the look of the house.
By this time we were so far off Highway 85 that we decided to continue on toward Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill has been one of our favorite destinations since we lived there in the 1960s. Jim did his residency at NC Memorial Hospital, Jimmy started school at the Durham Academy, Karen and Robin were launched into pre-school at the Little Red School House, and our hearts hurt when our youngest daughter was born as a Downs Syndrome child. In the 1970s we brought Robin back to Chapel Hill as a Freshman at UNC and renewed our love of the area.
Along the way to Chapel Hill we stopped at Beggars and Choosers in Pittsboro. I was drawn in by the name and the purple and green paint job on the outside - it promised to be interesting - and it was.
How about these snappy shoes?
I collect shoes - well, pictures of shoes, and these were the most interesting in a long time. I would have bought them if they had been a couple of sizes larger.
All in all an interesting side venture.
It made the trip longer, true - but sometimes it helps to have some breathing space to recollect yourself.
2 comments:
What fun, Ellouise. My bush actually has a couple MofM bottles on it, one of them with the words molded into the glass. You're right, plenty of people with gatric issues in those days, I guess. although probably even more today!
We stopped at a cool shop yesterday too. I'll post it on my blog sometime this week. I didn't find any blue bottles either. Odd how scarce they are.
When we were little we used to collect smoothed glass on the beach at Pett Level on the south coast of England. Green and white and brown were common enough; but blue was rare. We were told that many of the pieces came from a Medieval glass works -- apparently blue glass was the area's speciality.
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