Gifts from the flea market

WARNING: This is a very impromptu post. The pictures were hastily taken, and next to no research has been done, but the items being shown were too much fun to wait for a more well thought out post, so just be sure to keep that in mind while your scrolling through.

The setup: The Nashville flea market is pretty big deal for a lot of people. It's large, and there's lot of crap for sell, if that's not a recipe for drawing folks in, then I don't know what is.

I've been in TN for over four years now, and I haven't been to the flea market. It seems like my kind of place, but I've been told that there are a lot (or whatever more than a lot is) of people that attend these monthly gatherings, and me and large crowds don't go together too well, #SocialAnxiety. Plus, I'm really not a big fan of Nashville (Knoxville is much more to my liking), so other than the occasional card show (which is on the outskirts), I don't have much want to make the drive, no matter how great something may be -- now my mom on the other hand, well, she loves the flea market, and doesn't mind the drive, so she's pretty much been on an every other month schedule since moving here (five or six years ago).

Having a mom that frequents these sorts of places definitely has it's benefits, as you can see from the photo at the top of the post, this past weekend is a perfect example -- I don't go anywhere, and yet I still end up getting stuff.

The stuff:

Interesting!

Interestinger (yes, I know that's not a word)!

Thumb sighting!

I admit that I was a bit confused at first as to why my mom would've bought me this, but that confusion was only temporary, as it only took a look inside to answer that "why". This book makes up like a decade of someone's life, one day at a time. It appears to have been primarily used from 1951 through 1960, they started 1961 as well, but for some reason they didn't keep it up. The daily entries are pretty interesting unto themselves (at least from what I've seen), but there is also a ton of loose ephemera stuck between the pages.

This person also seems to have been a timekeeper at quite a few events. Here's one for a 1956 Golden Gloves competition at the Gannon Auditorium - now the Hammermill Center - which Google tells me is located in Erie, PA.

Any old school wrestling fans out there? If so, you should recognize a few of the names from this show (side note: I have a really cool original photo of Tony Marino when he worked as the Battman in a box somewhere).

See... loaded with stuff! As of this "writing", I haven't even had this book for more than 8 hours, and yet, an idea is forming, an idea that would involve starting a new blog, a new blog that would feature a page from this book each day (and any accompanying loose paper), this blog would run for exactly one year (length of the calendar)? I don't know how many people will actually read this post, but I wouldn't mind some feedback (good or bad) on this idea -- don't worry about hurting my feelings if you think it sucks, as I'm not fully committed to it yet anyway.

Second item:

I haven't really looked at this one yet, so I've really only got a few pictures to show, and that's it.

I'm not really a boat person, so some of this probably isn't going to make a lot of sense to me.

Types of butts??? :-)

Third item:

I'm pretty sure that I've never mentioned it on here before (there's been no reason to), but one of my absolute favorite things in this world is old radio programs, often referred to as old-time radio, or as the non-kids call it, OTR. This has been an interest of mine for about as far back as I can remember, I learned from an early age that most people in my age group could care less about radio shows from the 1930's-50's, so I never really talked about it then, or even now for that matter. I have a fairly large library of shows on vinyl, cassette, and CD -- all of which have been rendered pretty much obsolete by the internet. All the old shows are part of the public domain, so now you can listen to just about everything for free online, that being said, I still prefer my physical copies (even though there's a lot more episodes online than were ever released on hard copy).

I don't know if anybody cared to know that about me, but I thought it help explain why my mom got this 1935 Mikerscope Album & Log Book.

The original owner.

It looks like there's a missing photo just inside the cover.

It looks like there's around 30-40 bios in here, and early bios at that. A lot of the bigger names are covered... Fred Allen was so far ahead of his time!

The funniest woman who ever lived!

Jack would've been 41 in 1935, funny, he doesn't look a day over "39" :-)

Even if your not a fan of OTR, you should probably recognize that name.

During my quick perusal, I noticed a few unfamiliar names as well, Vincent stood out, if only because of the fist line on his bio...

You can tell this is old, as it's been a while since numerology has been referred to as an occult science. By the way, I long for the days when people still studied occult sciences, people used to be so much more interesting!

Despite the bio section, this log book was very much meant to be used, and thankfully, Mr. Edward Shirley did. He clearly was a radio enthusiast, as it only took him 10 days to fill up the stations received section, although judging by how quickly this section was filled (I'm guessing that he got the book on the 21st or 22nd of August 1935), he probably had an extensive log book of received stations. This is a person that I would very much like to know more about.


Fourth, and final, item:

Cool, an out of date book about how to play basketball.

There are lots of photos and diagrams.

There's also some stuff in between the pages of this one as well, including this bookmark from 1959.

See, obsolete! How do I know this? Simple, this diagram doesn't show a guard pulling up for a 3 at the end of the four on two fast break.

Hopefully this letter is readable, as it too was in between the pages. If it isn't, all scan it and show it again in future post.

Not a bad selection of stuff, eh? I have a habit of asking how much things being given to me cost, some might call this a bad habit, but I just like to make sure that not too much money is being spent on me. After so many years of me asking, my mom is pretty used to it, and save for birthday/Christmas presents, always tells me. Anyone else curious about the price of the contents in today's post? Would you believe me if I told you that it was just $4? I guess even if you don't believe it, that won't change the fact that that's much everything was, a buck apiece. Hmm, I might have to rethink this whole not going to the flea market thing...


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.