Reverend John is one of the few good guys we know in religious circles and we have shopped at the 10,000 Villages store in Asheville, NC many times so it was a no brainer for us to ride over and drop in on the sale. Unfortunately for us the good Reverend was nowhere in sight and neither were monkey pals Bobby, Donna, and Susie, but somehow we managed to contain our sadness and we took in all the sale had to offer.
We saw items like this cool cat purse and wooden snakes. Oddly enough no one wanted to handle the snakes so I picked one up and I began speaking in tongues. Well, not really, I didn't speak in tongues but I did pick one up and threaten to speak in tongues, but since Sparky told me I'd be walking back to Johnson City if I did, I decided not to.
We dug these toys made in Kenya but since we already have a wire dude on a wire bicycle that we bought from 10,000 Villages in Asheville years ago we didn't buy one of these.
There were many hand carved items for sale, like these turtles. However all the items were not benign, it turns out that First Pres. may be on the wrong side of the war on Christmas! You want further proof? Check this out:
Egads! How unseemly! A "Christian" church selling Christmas cards without the word "Christ" on them! Alert the baby Jesus, call FOX, get Bill O'Reilly down here STAT!
As we looked around at the rest of the items for sale I invented a new game. I call it "Basket or Hat?" The way we play is I show you a picture and you tell me if the object is a basket or a hat. Ready? Good! Here we go:
Basket or hat?
Basket or hat?
Basket or hat?
Ok, I admit that my game sucks, but trust me if Sparky had consented to my numerous pleas to put a basket on her head and wear it like a hat this game would have a lot more fun. Or if she had taken my picture wearing a basket as a hat then the fun would have never stopped!
We ended up buying some neat stuff, mostly Christmas decorations and ornaments, and we're glad we went. Maybe one day we might actually go to John's church on a Sunday and attend services, but don't hold your breath kids. It does my heart good to see that someone like John is the pastor at such a lovely church and I hope he continues his progressive ministry there for many years to come.
For the better part of the next four hours we wandered around in the many antique shops of downtown Elizabethton and in one of those shops I purchased this:
It's a Good Housekeeping magazine from 1955. I paid $1.37 for it. I'll be scanning in various articles and ads very soon and I'll share them with you here and on my other blog. I also saw this great item in one of those shops:
However I did not purchase them.
I did come across a store downtown that I know I'll be spending more time at very soon. It's a kitschy pop culture shop called "TV Memories." It sells all kinds of crazy old action figures, magazines, record albums, cereal boxes, and other bits of pop culture ephemera from the late 60's through today. It's my kind of shop but Sparky could barely stand to be in there for very long so I'll be going back soon to see the rest of their magical offerings. I'm not sure but I think I may want some of my ashes spread there after I get cremated.
