Day 10: Pickin’ on the Way Back to Hope Mills

It was our last day at the beach, but it certainly wasn’t our last day of pickin’! Julia and Brother Peter followed Susan and drove the Rav back to Hope Mills. The Mayor and I set out on the road earlier and took a different route through Lumberton, NC and visited a couple of pickin’ places along the way. I picked up a book about great pitchers for $3 and The Mayor got some supplies for his store and we continued onward towards home, at least, The Mayor’s home.

We rolled into Fayetteville and hit a bookstore called Edward McKay (indirectly related to the awesome McKay stores in Tennessee) where we both added to our baseball book collections very inexpensively. God love used book stores who don’t price gouge.

Our next stop was a scary flea market in an old grocery store or something called Bragg Boulevard Flea Market. Man, was the place was rather vile. And there was a $1 admission fee to boot! I can't believe we paid for that. And a visit there necessitated a hazmat bath upon leaving the premises. Who knows how many new and undiscovered microbes attached themselves to our persons during our time in that Petri dish. While there was vendor after vendor peddling fake or otherwise crappy crap, there was also the traditional cell phone accessory booths and the random knock-off fragrance sellers. Then there was a vendor selling framed photos of movie and sports stars for $5 each. While I would not purchase such items anyway, I did take a gander and quickly noticed that not only were they printed on the guy’s printer at home and crammed into Dollar Store frames, but it was totally evident that he downloaded low resolution images from The Google for said printing/framing/selling. Embarrassing and probably somewhat illegal.

Not my photo. I was too busy thinking about my safety.

About six months ago, The Mayor opened a pickin’ place of his own in Fayetteville called The Thrifty Patriot. This would be our last stop, at least downtown Fayetteville would be, before we set final sights on Hope Mills. It was after hours time at the Patriot, but the man is the proprietor, so the dude’s got keys! His store is not huge, but it was very well laid out and quite tidy for a pickin’ place and, best of all, I had it all to myself. Oh the joy. He showed me every nook and cranny and I made a small pile of baseball-related items (shocking, I know) and got a great deal from the owner.

There’s an interesting story behind one booth in particular at The Thrifty Patriot. The booth’s owner is Jeff Allen, who is described in a Fayetteville Observer article titled “Fayetteville man to sell keepsakes to help feed the hungry.” He is “turning collectibles into food" and selling his stuff to benefit the Second Harvest Food Bank. Most of my haul came from Mr. Allen’s booth. Quite the cool idea sir. I applaud you. Even cooler is the fact that Mr. Allen owns a feline named BoyCat.

Allen and BoyCat. Or is it Gandalf the Grey and Bumpkin?

Read more about Jeff Allen HERE, if you care to do so.

The Mayor then gave me a tour of downtown Fayetteville with a quick drive past the Market House, which served as a farmers market until 1906 and the second floor as the town hall until 1907. It’s a cool old building built in 1832 and teeming with Fayetteville history.

Just down the street from the Market House, The Mayor showed me this sign:

How awesome is that? The Babe’s first pro home run AND the nickname?

As if that wasn’t enough, it was getting to be darned near supper time in Hope Mills, so we headed down the road a piece to Grandsons. Perhaps you recall last year’s visit when I got a frantic call from my niece just minutes after she had been involved in her first car accident? She was quite certain that her father would, indeed, either take her life or never let her drive again for the rest of her days. I’m happy to report that she is still among the living and driving around town today. You may also remember that that phone call also basically ruined that Southern buffet experience of joy, but not before I was able to taste the single greatest dessert treat known to man, Southern and Yankee alike – the sweetest delight also known as peach cobbler. Thankfully, there was no such interruption this year and I towered my plate like Pisa and partook of many fine Southern items – fried chicken (yep, on the bone), God’s pork gift of fatback, and that other gift from above – peach cobbler. It was so joyfully sugary that it made my teeth tingle with cobblery goodness. And all of that was washed down the gullet with a gallon of unsweetened tea, not that nuclear runoff sweet tea poison stuff.

Click HERE to see the photos from Day 10.