As I was getting ready this morning, I heard the sound of rain hitting the roof. For a brief moment, I thought of crawling back in bed. But—you never know—it could be clear skies just a little further down in Charlotte.
I walked outside to see an overcast sky, but it felt like it could’ve been late September—certainly not mid-August. Hasn’t this heat wave been unbearable? Ugh!
I’ve got four sales on my list and none of them mention cookbooks. Today is going to be a lot of wishing and digging.
My first stop is near the house. The sale doesn’t open for another hour and it’s around 6:30am. The drizzle has started up again but as I drive by, I see the garage door is open and tables are filled with items. I park the car and walk up. The light in the garage is on—but no one is out there.
I look around and see a chair at the end of a table with a small stack of cookbooks in the seat—but I don’t think I’ll get those. On the other side of the table is another chair—now these are more my style!
BarclaysAmerican Buffet (Employees of BarclaysAmericanCorporation, 1982) Gone With the Grits (Diane Pfeifer), Taste the Nation (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Republican Women’s Club, Charlotte, NC) and Taste & See that the Lord is Good, Psalm 34:8 (Thrift Baptist Church, Charlotte, NC).
And that’s when the light goes off! I guess the timer ended?
I knock on the door that leads into the house—the door that is cracked open, by the way. I hope someone is awake in there.
A man’s voice answers and says he’ll be out in a second. Then, I hear him call to his wife. They both emerge—he’s finishing a biscuit and she’s still in her nightgown!
She walks into the garage and tells me that she’s been laying in bed, listening to the drizzle, wondering if anyone would show up for the sale. She goes on to say that the whole house is for sale, but that these were the only cookbooks she’s run across. I pay for the four and move on to my next sale.
When I pull up, I don’t see many cars—but a glance down the driveway spots a garage full of stuff. As I walk down the driveway, I notice that the entire back porch is filled with items as well. I must have spent ten minutes going through every table—no cookbooks!
I ask around and no one has any. Then, a gentleman in the garage tells me that they don’t cook. Then, I hear someone else say that they’re not even supposed to be open—but decided to let people come in early because of the weather.
That’s curious. I thought this was my 7am sale? When I get back to the car and my list. A dread sets in. I’ve mistakenly punched in the 8am sale on the GPS and now I’m a good fifteen minutes late to the 7am sale. I just hope that this weather kept too many people from going.
When I finally make it to the 7am sale, it’s a small home with a few tables in the garage. I look over the table to see linens, lamps and some serving pieces. Then, someone mentions that there’s a table full of items through the living room and in the enclosed back porch.
I walk through the neat and elegant living room out to the tiny back porch. Three people are already packed in. There are a few old board games, some gardening tools and knick-knacks. No cookbooks. So I didn’t miss anything? That’s a relief!
There are several helpers at this sale, but I seek out the elderly lady that owns the house. She’s very sweet looking and is wearing a very nice outfit of cream colored slacks and a beautiful blouse with large blue and purple flowers. (It crosses my mind that when I’m her age, I hope I’m as put-together and elegant.) I ask her if there are any cookbooks she’s interested in bringing out. “Oh boy, I didn’t think about those. I’ve got a ton of them.”
I told her that I would gladly wait if she wanted to look through them. She agreed and a few minutes later, one of her helpers emerged with these:
Miss Daisy Celebrates Tennessee (Daisy King, researched and written with James A. Crutchfield and Winette Sparkman), The Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook, Pleasures of the Good Earth (Friends of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, Bucks County, PA) and The Philadelphia Orchestra Cookbook (The West Philadelphia Women’s Committee for The Philadelphia Orchestra, Bryn Mawr, PA).
The Cookie Book (Edited by Ruth Berolzheimer, Culinary Arts Institute) and The Cookie Jar (Savannah Sugar Refining Corp., Savannah, GA). I love this wooden cover on The Cookie Book! How cute is the little kid as they get into the giant cookie jar? Plus, when I went through the booklet inside, I found this small cookie recipe pamphlet, shaped like a cookie jar, featuring Dixie Crystals sugar.
Now this was a really nice selection! As I’m about to leave, the lady comes back out and I thank her for looking through her collection for me. I ask her name and she tells me that her real name is Lorena, but that everyone knows her as “Mickey.” One of her daughters chimes in and says that Mickey is almost 90 years old. (I bet she used to be a Vegas showgirl back in the 1940s…) I ask if she’s moving and she says yes, to a small apartment. She then tells me that she has a half acre of landscaped backyard that she can’t take care of anymore.
So then it hits me, she’s close to 90 and she didn’t bring out a Betty Feezor? I mention that I was a little surprised that a Betty didn’t make an appearance in the stack. She smiled and said that I can come back when she’s off to the nursing home. I knew there was a reason I liked her! That means Betty was in there and Mickey isn’t giving her up just yet. Neither would I Mickey, neither would I.