This American Town: Julianna Boggs
The newspaper had said something about a small town some miles south becoming a Saturday “bargain paradise” for anyone who cared to make the trip. It was in fact the annual Bargain Lovers' Weekend, always held during the first weekend of September, and lo and behold that time had come again. After some discussion about whose car and what gas, it was decided that sure, we’d go. I’d never been to Ferndale, knowing only that it was out of the way and had little more than dairy cows and chintzy artisan shops, but we would go anywhere for a sale.
The next morning we did our best to wake up early, but were only rubbing the sleep out of our eyes at 10 a.m. Then there was breakfast to be had and coffee to be drunk and by the time we’d rounded everybody up and headed on our way it was getting well on noon. By half past 12 we crossed Fernbridge, one of two concrete arch bridges still in use in the world today. A marvel of its day, it was the longest concrete arch span ever built when constructed in 1911.
Turning onto Hwy 211, we wound our way through the lush pasture outskirts and hay-barn suburbs of Ferndale. Five miles later, we’d arrived. The sun was shining and a cool breeze was blowing so that you weren’t uncomfortable wearing a light jacket in the shade. Windows down, we idled through the main drag in search of a parking space, lamenting the passing of amazing things that would surely be gone by the time we’d made our way back. We’d driven half way across town before we finally found a spot for the faded blue Honda.
Founded in 1852, Ferndale’s population of 1,382 hasn’t fluctuated more than a few hundred people in either direction since 1900, and for the time being, bargain hawks such as us outnumbered residents 2: 1. Everywhere you looked old women were standing around their tables of treasure, telling buyers stories of where they got it or what it meant to them years ago. Old men sat together on porch stoops, watching the sales come and go.
Outside a butter yellow house I looked at a collection of tiny flags and listened as a woman with mousy hair and wire-rimmed glasses told me of her trips through Vietnam and Rome. For $1 the little Canadian flag could be mine- I purchased the lot.
All the houses were perfect. Neat little gardens in neat little rows; clean-swept porches and every one with an American flag out front. Screen doors let fresh air inside and even with the influx of weekend visitors the place had a sleepy peacefulness about it so you could almost hear the “Andy Griffith Show” theme carried on the wind. I was driven in my search for full-length aprons and little framed embroidery squares of flower bouquets and birds.
We passed by tables loaded up with old radios and cameras. Boxes and boxes of dusty romance novels with torn covers looked like they’d been held and read a thousand times. There were piles of shoes and worn-out boots. I stopped to snoop through a box of old presidential candidate pins- “I do like Ike,” I thought, turning one over in my hand.
We passed down the street at an appropriate small-town pace, stopping at a church rummage sale at the far side of Main. “Clothes are a dollar a bag and the bags are just there beneath the table,” an old lady would point and say to every single person who walked in. Cupcake tins separated pairs of gaudy gold-plated earrings, and a pile of chunky necklaces lay neglected in an inextricable knot. There was no end to the small porcelain collectors’ plates depicting state slogans and historical monuments. “Missouri- the SHOW ME state” and coffee mugs with coffee stains and hairline fractures running through the chipped painted pictures with lonely affirmations like “#1 Grandpa.”
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