Big Daddy's Flea Market

Bevin and I celebrated Christmas a little early with the family out at Cedar Creek Lake. Mammaw's lake house is picturesque being fifty yards from the water line. There are two bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, huge kitchen, sun room and a great back porch from which you can look out onto the lake and her boat house at the end of the dock. It's always a pleasure spending time there no matter how full the house gets, and it was quite full for Christmas!

After a day of gorging on cold cuts, mixed cheeses, fudge, etc., we headed home but not before stopping at a place called Big Daddy's Flea Market just between Tool and Seven Points. Yes, that's the name, Google it. Big Daddy's sits on about three acres of prime East Texas real estate along Hwy 274 and has the look of a converted Public Storage yard, only before there ever was anything called "Public Storage". The initial appearance of the place is deceptively small; it wasn't until we were through the first two buildings that I realized all the other sheds belonged to Big Daddy as well. The peddled wares though were pure white trash gold! Seriously, I've been to flea markets all over south and east Texas, as well as most of South Carolina and central Alabama. I know white trash gold when I see it.

And so does Bevin! She bought us a hot bag of roasted peanuts and a can of Dr. Pepper from a nice lady selling various cookbooks compiled by some of the local churches in town. We munched down while looking through voluminous libraries of old VCR tapes, ninja throwing stars, NASCAR collectibles- you name it! The highlight of the day was the basset hound puppies; Bevin was in love with a quiet one by the time I caught up with her. I'd been distracted by someone selling "books"... the largest collection of Nora Roberts and Danielle Steel I've ever had the, pleasure?, of wading through. (Anyone need a Dummies guide to Windows 98? I know where you can find one.) If we didn't already have Ruby, we'd have gone home with the little puppy! It was a 3 pound bundle of wrinkles and ears, very cute!

Too bad we didn't have the camera out. Some of the other patrons were very interesting and a picture would do them more justice than my faded memory. We came back to our car to find Ruby had thrown up in the back seat. The mess was cleaned up nicely and no one seemed to mind me letting Ruby pee next to our parking space. If you're ever out that way, check this place out and bring cash, you're going to need it when you find that rare copy of "Double Impact" in Betamax!