Flea Market Memories With Mom

Moseying about a dusty gravel lot, sorting through trash in search of treasures on tarps and dilapidating wooden tables was a Saturday morning for mom and I.

She warmed me to the world of flea markets, thrift stores, and yard sales at a young age. Going to flea markets, or as she referred to it “hitting the fleas,” was my mother’s most prominent hobby. She didn’t attend antique auctions or spend a Sunday spotting yard sales out of cheapness, although nobody loved a bargain more than her. My mom found fun escape in these second-hand realms, as well as endless opportunity to come across furniture she could fix-up and interesting items she could hoard.

I developed a mutual passion for finding and collecting old stuff. Mom stuck to vintage clothes, furniture, and wooden ducks. She simply liked ducks, as she often told me, and made it her goal to completely cover the surface of our fireplace with various wooden ducks. I myself was more into old basketball cards, books, throwback windbreakers, comedy records, and other oddities. Either way the fleas were a haven for us.

On a Summer Saturday or Sunday mom would drive me a long rural route to Yokelsville, PA, where Jake’s Flea Market was located. Jake’s was our favorite flea with the most character, least class, and a slew of our fondest memories.

It wasn’t your modern, hipster “farmer’s market” where dudes in buckle shoes are selling homemade dream catchers and $9 organic onions. Jake’s was a true, filthy flea. If you were in the cards for some rusty tools, kielbasa, and a broken bowflex it was your place. Picture an enormous, open pit of gravel, filled with wooden stands aligned in a maze. Several tattered shacks scattered the lot, in which you might have found model trains, a John Stockton rookie card, and stack of vintage smut.

Vendors and visitors filled the dustbowl weekly, and were rather difficult to tell apart. There was a whole lot of flannel, but very few teeth. Jake’s demographic was primarily old racists of the blue-collar variety, and the occasional family who almost assuredly had living room furniture on their porch. You were guaranteed to meet a whole squad of characters with colorful pasts, and you couldn’t avoid the “regulars.” Jake’s was a home to many homely familiar faces who rented stands each weekend to peddle their trash. Mom and I engaged with and knew virtually everybody. These folks were a main incentive for showing up. Even more alluring were the pick-ups to be made among all that junk they put a price on.

The laundry list of fascinating finds at Jake’s was too impressive to be embarrassing. If you spent time there and really immersed in the search, it was inevitable you’d leave with gems and the desire to take a shower. Mom bought all her furniture at Jake’s. Nice stuff, and not everything had Swastikas carved into it. She truly did stumble upon some excellent pieces there. Plus all of her aforementioned wooden ducks, a great deal of art, and our most beloved friend — A German Shepard named Roxy.

She flew solo to Jake’s one morning and returned with an adorable puppy. We already had a large lovable dog, but mom masked her as “a birthday gift” for my dad. She claims a dog breeder was there with a crew of German Shepard pups. I assume she pet them and conversed with the breeder for a minimum of 45 minutes. When she began walking away Roxy followed her. Mom had to bring her home.

Roxy was on the simple side, but no dog was ever so sweet and affectionate towards us. Certainly the greatest living and breathing find my mom had at Jake’s. As for my finds, the collection is extensive and impossible to recount in its entirety. Notable ones include: An original “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” movie poster from the year of release, my ventriloquist dummy Mortimer whose face was torn off by Roxy in later years, numerous rare Nintendo games, and The Psychic Circle.

This was a more artistically branded Ouija Board. Mom pointed out the vibrant purple and blue box one day along a Jake’s stroll and explained what it was. She spoke of her experiences playing with Ouijas in nursing school. Her and the gals would get together and spend an evening contacting vengeful spirits.

We unanimously decided on buying the Psychic Circle. My dad was far from thrilled upon our arrival with it. “That’s devil shit,” he theorized. He didn’t want it in the house, and we were better off listening. The initial use scared us out of toying with it for a long time, when “it” precisely guessed the number of basketball cards in a case that we also just bought at Jake’s. Despite the Psychic Circle’s traumatizing aspects, that devil shit amazed my mom and I.

On a less haunted note, every bike I ever owned was purchased from the “Bike Guy” at Jake’s. Whether I was whipping a turquoise mountain bike with busted gears or a rainbow BMX bike with 1 peg, it was he who hooked me up. This character was the authority on fucked up women’s bikes from the early 90s. I went through a plethora of his used, questionable machines. My mom was always happy to buy me them, solely because she never paid over 25 bucks. They lasted an average of 2 months, but for the price it seemed right.

Those in the market for a rock were in luck. Jake’s also had the “Rock Guy,” as my mom and I called him. Week after week this poor bastard was in attendance, sunrise to shutdown, just selling rocks. Not once did I witness anyone purchase one, or even approach his stand. In fairness, Rock Guy wasn’t blessed with the most welcoming appearance.

He had the longest, scraggliest, most unkempt grey beard you’d ever lay eyes on. Nobody looked a more ideal candidate for living in a van and selling crystals. He was almost too perfect.

What kept him returning was forever a mystery to us. It couldn’t have been a zest for customer service, because he only spoke in grunts and growls. I checked out his table only once, in curious trepidation. He looked at me with the bulging, glazed blue eyes of a maniac ready to skin his next victim. I offered a friendly “hello,” to which he grunted like a Neanderthal. After catching a glimpse of his outrageous prices I bid him good day. He met my goodbye with a vicious snarl. I sauntered away a changed man with unanswered questions. As my mom later summarized it, “Rock Guy’s kind of an asshole.”

On one particular morning we stopped by a commonly seen table of old screws, smoke and mildew-smelling children’s clothes, VHS tapes, and a few daggers. You normally wouldn’t come across anything of interest at these country bumpkin stockpiles, but mom always preached, “You never know what you’re gonna find.”

As she and I eyeballed the heap of garbage resting before us we were struck by our most puzzling flea find of all-time: A wad of thick brown hair taped into an excessively large picture frame. We peered up from it to see the giant old, dip-in-lip hick who owned the stand staring down at us. He spit a mouthful of chew spit on the ground in lieu of a greeting. A mischievous smirk appeared on my mom’s face as she looked at him and asked, “What’s with the hair in the frame?”

Without hesitation or a blink of the eye he retorted, “Wooly mammoth fur.”

No further information was given, and we didn’t know where to begin inquiring. The three of us stood in silence for a few seconds. Mom and I made it several strides away from his face and burst into laughter.

Between Bike Guy, Rock Guy, and the man who met Wooly Mammoths, it may sound as though Jake’s cast of characters were a bunch of frightening nuts. Not entirely true. Jake’s had plenty of kind-hearted nuts as well. A sweet but dull man coming to mind is the fella who once sold my mom a love seat.

He owned a shed at Jake’s, which he sold furniture out of (at very flexible prices mind you.) My mom used her charisma to talk him down on an olive green suede love seat and we were ready to head out. She drove a Subaru Outback at the time, but unfortunately didn’t have bungee cords or rope to secure this beast on it. The furniture fella didn’t have any either. He did, however, own a disturbing amount of old Cabbage Patch Kids dolls.

His solution was tying a bunch of Cabbage Patch Kids together by their limp limbs to make two long ropes. He then used the Cabbage Patch ropes to fasten our new love seat onto the roof rack. Once it was barely secured, furniture salesman MacGyver wished us well and waved goodbye.

We pulled off at a crawl with a 200-pound piece of furniture sitting atop our vehicle, held on only by lassos of dirty Cabbage Patch Kids. Mom busted an easy right out of the gravel lot onto Route 100, a major roadway notorious for people flying. All seemed well with no cars in rear distant sight. She pressed a bit more heavily on the gas and we picked up to a cruise. Before we could hit 45 there was an immense THUD in the road behind us.

Mom slammed on the breaks and pulled over. I swung my head back to see the couch laying feet behind us, upside-down with two broken legs. In the wake was a street littered with Cabbage Patch Kids — Now even grimier and void of any purpose. It looked like the sky rained tiny, unwashed orphans. While it was an inconvenience, it was also a situation we never stopped laughing over or sharing with others.

The people, purchases, and experiences of Jake’s will live on forever through stories. Stories that grow finer, more charming, and more impossible to replicate with time. For my mother and I personally, they’re becoming essential to hold onto as years pass. Sure, tales may gain heart with age, while memories grow more cherished. Even items at the fleas within these stories increase in value and appeal with age. But time is not good to all things.

I share these memories of the fleas when I speak with my mother on the phone. Recollections are all we have. She doesn’t know what day it is or what she ate this morning, but she can generally recall our Jake’s escapades with fondness.

My mother’s not the with-the-program, witty woman she once was. Nor is she particularly positive. Our conversations are typically a 6-minute loop of her issuing the same couple distressing complaints over and over.

If I open up about myself, lessons I’ve learned, or share something introspective it’s met with silence. Mom’s not capable of understanding much of anything anymore. She only grasps what’s going on at the very moment, and even that comprehension’s foggy. The right now, the recent ways she feels she has been wronged, and random insignificant memories from 10 to 40 years are all she really holds onto.

Most unsettlingly, mom latches onto the negative. I mentioned earlier that any discussion is essentially her re-addressing the same disheartening issues, which I have no control over. She’s in assisted living, trudging by joylessly while her mind deteriorates. I’m thousands of miles away, without family or good friends, still trying to figure myself out and begin at life at just 24.

She has my dad nearby to take her out to eat, or see local sports. My sister and her family visit on occasion. They can’t spend too much time with her, as it’s very detrimental to your mental wellbeing. My mother’s condition is almost entirely why I moved states away with no real plan immediately after graduating college. Now I’m alone and frightened, to be frank. My mother, wasting away in the “old folks home” she hates, is in very much the same boat.

Jake’s flea market was a land of treasured memory. Every “regular” had a past, and the items they sold carried stories. It was here my mother and I developed a bond through sharing a common, unique interest. It’s where we had our most enjoyable experiences together, and subsequently created our most near and dear memories. Now it’s all nothing but a memory, at a time when my mother and I have nothing left but memories.

She needs these reminders of better days as badly as I do. When she delves into her usual repetitive negativity, I can steer her towards serenity with an old Jake’s story. For at least a few seconds we can reflect on the beautiful relationship and hilarious adventures we had. She may not remember an event or person specifically, but she always brightens up when I mention how we used to hit the fleas.

The memories of Jake’s are a short window of brightness for us both. For mom, they’re some of the only positive memories she has remaining. For me, they’re the finest, most endearing examples of a period when my mom was herself, I felt like myself, and we loved life together. They’re also my last remaining means of relating to her.

I’ve been told time and time again, “There’s nothing you can do for her. All you can do is keep yourself happy and healthy.” It’s a terrifying fact to face, knowing you can’t do anything to help your mother while you hopelessly watch her die of Alzheimer’s. What I’ve found is, I can help her if only for that span of seconds when I relay a Jake’s memory. I can help myself in the same way.

Just a few days back I reminded mom about the time we happened upon “Wooly Mammoth Fur.” She laughed a genuine laugh like I hadn’t heard from her in awhile. I reveled in it with her. Seconds later she trailed off along her path of deluded bickering, but I kept thinking about our Jake’s visits and their heartwarming hilarity