Day 11 began with breakfast
at Bojangles. I know! Bojangles, perhaps the greatest road trip lunch/dinner/snack
fast food offering in the South, nay, the Nation, serves breakfast too! The
Mayor went with some sort of chicken on a biscuit thing, which I, ever the
poultry lover, just couldn’t do for the first meal of the day. Or, as The Mayor
would say, I wouldn’t do. “Broaden your horizons, Dave,” he said. No thank you,
sir. Most of the time he can talk me into anything, but Yankees don’t do
chicken for breakfast unless they have, for some reason, forgotten what time of
day it is. And I knew the time thanks to the iPhone, although on this trip, one
could never be confident with the device’s choice of time zone. But it was
light and looked like morning, so I went with that.
The foodstuffs were
consumed and we were off. We took Julia back to the house with a breakfast
snack for Brother Peter and for time in The Mayor’s salt water pool. This would
be perhaps the last time they would have the opportunity to enter the water on
the trip other than bathing, which neither of the siblings seem to do very
frequently.
 |
| Oh, sobbing Cubs girl, how I love thee. |
The Mayor then led me
to his game cardboard collection in the garage. In sports card lingo, there is
a thing called “commons” or cards of lesser name players. Much of what is
stored in his garage are such commons, but he also has duplicates of sets and
other fun basebally items. He had me rummage through to see if there was
anything I wanted/needed for my own collection of baseball joy. I picked five
sets – the 1984 and 1985 Topps sets to name a few, so now I have every Topps
set from 1981-1995 and then 2006 to the present. Needless to say, I’m pretty
sure The Mayor’s garage was a little slice of heaven. The only thing better
would be front row seats at Wrigley Field as the Cardinals stomp a mudhole in the
Cubs while this girl continues to sob and I’m surrounded by millions of game
cardboards printed between 1909 and 1965. Throw in some fatback, Dr. Pepper and
Grandson’s peach cobbler and I’m there! Oh, and a BLT from Crown Candy Kitchen
and fries from Bojangles… I’ll stop now.
He then took us over to
the “barn” of one of his rental properties where he stores yet more cards since
he doesn’t have enough room in his garage. And there was yet one more barn that
he showed me that he said contained more common cards. The first barn was
actually just a garage behind a house and the second was a two-story shed
behind another in the shape of a barn. Those Southerners and their wrong speak.
He also let Julia choose from at least 100 golf clubs to add to her set. Once
again, and needless to say, The Mayor is probably one the most genuine, nicest
people I have ever met – in the Top 5 anyway in case I’m overlooking someone.
For the final time, The
Mayor and I headed of for another round of pickin’ in Fayetteville to visit the
stores that were closed on previous visits. I have a friend, whom I call
VanDaWonk or simply VDW, who is currently in the process of gestating a
miniature human. VDW and her husband have decided upon a circus theme for the
wee critter’s room and in all of my pickin’ adventures, I rarely see
circus-related items. Hideous, creepy, scary, “can’t sleep, clown will eat me”
clowns – yes. Statues of elephants getting attacked by tigers – you got it. But
a big top motif, a strong man, or Barnum and Bailey? Not so much. Until today.
Well, that’s a bit of a white lie. I did find a round metal circus tent thingy
at an antique place earlier in the week, which I figured I could clean up
nicely for random small human items. But on this day, I found something even
better – a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus pennant from the 1940s
or 50s for the outrageous sum of…I’m building suspense here with the use of the
ellipses…your brain is racking to figure out if it was really cheap or upwards
of a Benjamin…insert a wee bit more suspense here…for the outrageous sum of…$4.
No. That’s not a typo. For $4. And I decided that if she didn’t want it, I
would keep it. It was that cool. Update: she liked it and kept it. I may break
into her house later to reclaim it though.
After the final pickin’
adventure, we headed back to Casa de Mayor to pick up Julia, Brother Peter,
Pinky and her twin for lunch at Becky’s. Apparently, The Mayor has breakfast at
Becky’s every day. It was a narrow, shotgun-style place with maybe ten tables.
Either the AC was not in the “on” position, or the heat from the nearby kitchen
was warming the place from back to front. Becky arrives at 4:30 a.m. to open
the place for breakfast, so it was no surprise to The Mayor that she sat at the
table across from us dozing with her chin pressed into her chest. I wouldn’t be
surprised if she was snoring, but if she was, it could not be heard over the
ambient noises of the restaurant. Brother Peter should take heed. It took some
time for the food to arrive as it’s made fresh to order, but my burger was
quite scrumptious. Julia and Brother Peter opted for a “hamburger steak,” which
they thought would be some type of burger, but turned out to be a hamburger
steak (as advertised).
Upon leaving Becky’s with
full bellies, the twins made sure that we went to Big T’s for snowballs, what we
Yankees call snow cones or shaved ice. These things we bad to the bone. I’m not
sure why, but the ice didn’t melt as one consumed it, even though it was 507
degrees out in Hope Mills that day. Those were some tasty treats after that
hearty lunch at Becky’s.
After the gorging, it
was time to head back to The Mayor’s house to say goodbye to the fam (that
means you Pinky and the Twin) and to pack up to head to Winston-Salem and the Dash
game. Using my mad packing skills that I acquired by stacking blocks, Legos and
Lincoln Logs for many hours as a child, I loaded up the Rav with our baggage
and new purchases and off we went. We arrived in Winston-Salem, dropped off
Brother Peter and the other baggage
at the hotel and headed to BB&T Ball Park for the game and the biggest
surprise of the trip – how nice the stadium was. I’d estimate another crowd
with less than 500 fans in attendance. What gives people? Even so, we enjoyed
our garlic fries, the stadium and the mascot (Bolt) and The Curse of Julia was
lifted, if only for a night, with a 12-9 Dash victory.
So see some photos from
Day 11 by clicking HERE.
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