Tales of the Bazaar
Looking for a vintage linen tablecloth? A Roy Rogers lunch box? A tear gas canister? If you can’t find it at one of Texas‘ trade days markets, it probably doesn‘t exist.
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After two days in Canton, although still woefully short of a thorough grasp of the place, I’d had enough of everything—even mounted roosters ($99), peacock-pattern chenille bedspreads ($70), and unfinished oak rockers ($80). I looked down at one more pile of rusty garden tools, and my crapometer started smoking. I had to get out of there before I bought something I really didn’t need, like a sign with the wood-burned message “I want to live in the fast lane, but I’m married to a speed bump” ($35). As Mom said when we hobbled past yet another booth crammed with nonfunctional birdhouses made of weathered barn wood and decorated with silk flowers, lace, ducks, and bunnies, “People sure are busy making nothing.”
I returned to Canton in August, this time with my husband, Richard. It was so hot our feet sank into the asphalt parking lot, but at least the crowds had the sense to stay home. The whir of portable fans filled the air, and vendors in the deep shade along the trails tried to stay sane and attract customers by setting up misters around their booths. Oddly enough, the stalls I found most interesting were those set up inside the Canton Civic Center, an area limited to antiques and collectibles—and the only air-conditioned building on the grounds. Estate jewelry and rhinestone brooches twinkled all around. Fragile porcelain doodads beckoned. Despite the fabulous chill, we had the place nearly to ourselves.
The lack of customers didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of Lois Smith, a first-time exhibitor at Canton. She showed me her glowing collection of Vaseline glass, educating me about each piece as though she were a museum curator. She held the bowls and dishes up to a black light to reveal their phosphorescence, the result of uranium in the glass, and explained that glassblowers who specialized in these radiant pieces didn’t live very long. (How could $175 possibly be enough to pay for a candy dish that shortened a man’s life?) Around the corner, Howard Hatcher, who specializes in vintage containers like soda bottles and ice-cream cartons, was carefully aligning the food cans in his “country store.” (Don’t worry; there’s no chance that ancient mashed pumpkin will someday explode from the can. All his vintage labels are glued to unused vintage cans.) Hatcher lovingly pointed out his oldest label, one for roasted mutton from the late 1800’s: “Sounds better than one I saw for boiled mutton,” he said. He pulled down a can with a vibrantly colored label for red kidney beans. “Feel the butterflies up around the rim of that one,” he said, still amazed after 29 years of collecting that manufacturers once went to the trouble to emboss the labels on lowly cans of vegetables.
We stumbled around outside for a few more hours in the 108-degree heat, eyeing beautifully restored gasoline pumps, peeling primitive furniture, stacks of cowhides, all manner of doorknobs, and forties waffle irons before deciding to return with the cooler weather . . . and a pickup truck.
Held the Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday preceding the first Monday of every month, from sunrise to sunset. Main entrance on Texas Highway 19, just north of downtown (903-567-6556). Admission free; parking $3.
Warrenton—Round Top I’ve been to this extravaganza three times, and I still don’t feel as if I’ve seen a fraction of the offerings. But you don’t have to eat an entire cheesecake to know it’s rich, right?
As you drive toward Warrenton from La Grange on Texas Highway 159, the flotsam begins washing up on the roadside around Rutersville—a wagon, a cabinet, an old ice chest with a price sign propped against it. But this sparse mishmash is hardly fair warning for what lies ahead: thousands of vendors lining the road, set up in converted German dance halls and private pastures scattered from Warrenton to Round Top and out to Shelby, Carmine, and even Burton.
Emma Lee Turney inadvertently spawned this spectacle when she started the Round Top Antiques Fair 31 years ago. Today 35 or so other shows make up this sprawling event. Warrenton is where I bought my beloved metal glider love seat, with its unusual geometric cutout pattern and perfectly burnished multilayer paint job, for $225. During a visit this past spring, I lusted after a pair of 1850’s carved-stone griffins from France ($7,500 for both) but couldn’t figure out how to fit the 350-pound beasts in my Honda. One booth was filled with fabric from the twenties, thirties, and forties (two and a half yards of a luscious print of banana leaves and tropical fruit was $65). In a giant tent just north of Warrenton, the 22nd/Second Warehouse sold unusual European collectibles: enameled bread boxes from Holland; huge, wavy-glass Russian vinegar jars from the forties. I saw more wooden goat carts ($125—$250) than there are goats in South Texas, and there’s definitely no shortage of rusty enamel pails in this part of the world ($15). One of my favorite vendors, Joel Fitch, was selling metal lunch boxes that stopped me in my tracks. “Hey, I had one of those,” I said, pointing to a tartan-plaid number ($25) tucked in among the Green Hornets and Roy Rogerses. “Everybody says that,” said Joel, rolling his eyes. “And I’ve still got one like this,” I said, picking up a Walt Disney school bus ($65) loaded with characters.
“Is it just like this, with Jiminy Cricket getting off the bus?” he asked, leaning forward excitedly.
Now I was excited: “Yeah, yeah.”
He collapsed in disappointment. “Too bad. If a pig was getting off the bus, you’d really have something.”
Held the first full weekend in April and October (some vendors open as early as the Monday before), from sunrise to sunset, primarily along Texas Highways 159 and 237 between La Grange and Carmine. (Because Easter falls on the first weekend of April next year, the April 1999 show will be held the second weekend.) Admission free; parking ranges from free to $2. Call the Round Top Chamber of Commerce (409-249-4042) for more information.
Boerne Market Days I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with flowerpots made from old tires turned inside out, clipped creatively, and painted with country landscapes, or even with saccharine cement yard art (a family of turtles with toothy grins, anyone?). And I suppose that emu jerky has its devoted fans. But despite the plethora of arts-and-crafts kitsch, Boerne Market Days has an undeniable small-town, lemonade-stand charm. That alone, however, doesn’t warrant a road trip into the Hill Country. I include it in my lineup because it illustrates the serendipitous events that can accompany and sometimes eclipse the more demure trade days. In this case my trip happily coincided with the annual Boerne Optimist Club Antique Show, held every March at the Kendall County Fairgrounds. I spent nearly an hour studying the button cards at various booths, where prices ranged from $3 for a button printed with tiny flowers to $35 for a green metal one with a bas-relief palm tree and hut. My husband, Richard, was similarly taken with a collection of old tools, from which he finally chose a Black Raven hatchet ($40) for its cool logo and curvaceous silhouette.
Nearly every dealer offered something unique: a turn-of-the-century child’s wagon still sporting the original, cheery paint job on its elaborate wooden fretwork, a handmade pine traveling cabinet with hand-wrought hardware and snug-fitting doors to shut out all the dust kicked up when crossing the prairie by horse-drawn wagon, a collection of tiny books about baby animals in perfect condition after 65 years. The Boerne Public Library was holding its annual book sale on the fairgrounds as well. I nabbed some blushingly politically incorrect fifties travel guides for Tonga and Cuba for 25 cents each and two volumes of the 1906 edition of The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia for $3 each.
Another, smaller gathering of dealers had assembled in a parking lot downtown. Once again, Richard rooted through a pile of tools and brought forth two hatchets, an ax, and two cross-peen hammers. I guess some fellows can never have too many whacking tools.
Boerne Market Days: The schedule is irregular, but the market will definitely be held October 10 and 11 and November 7 and 8 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the town plaza on Main Street (Business U.S. 87); contact the Retail Merchants Association (830-249-8095) for more information. Admission and parking free.
Boerne Optimist Club Antique Show: held the first weekend in March from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Kendall County Fairgrounds (one mile east of town on Texas Highway 46). Admission $3; parking free.
My Library
