Waldo Flea Market

Here’s a long overdue post on my first experience at the Waldo Flea Market. Jared, Charley, and I drove up to Waldo, which is a town located about 15 miles north of Gainesville, FL. Charley and Jared are Waldo Flea Market veterans. Though I have been to a few flea markets before, I have to say this one is quite an experience.

Oddballs and oddities abound at this place. I was definitely more interested in scoping out the people selling things than the things themselves. There was the little old lady in the stand pictured below who seemed paranoid that Jared and Charley were trying to steal some of her beloved old junk. I smiled at her and it seemed to put her at ease.

We walked over to a glass case in her little stand and low and behold when you least expect it out pops the Nazi and KKK paraphernalia. Maybe not such a sweet little old lady after all!!! “Sorry ma’am not in the market for a swastika belt buckle today.” Now I’m wondering about the meaning of the black baby dolls hanging from the ceiling like that in the above photo. CREEPY!!!

There was a krishna trying to force the Bhagavad Gita upon me, but she wanted a donation that I couldn’t afford. She kept insisting that I take it saying that it was “free” but then when I’d pick it up she’d say that she wanted a small donation. Then I would put it down and she would insist that I take it again. I almost didn’t make it out of there without achieving enlightenment.

The swankiest joint in the whole place was definitely the knife shop, which has a door and air conditioning. Inside you can find knives and throwing stars of all sorts. You can also find glove with a serrated knife on each finger that would probably make Freddy Krueger cringe. Other than that there is a music store with some pretty fancy made in the U.S. string instruments with pearl inlays.

The outside stands are where the real weirdos seem to dwell. Some old timers would speak to us in some indecipherable, garbled language and we’d just nod our heads. There was an old guy with a labyrinth of rusty scrap metal and odds and ends. His place was set up like a fortress so that there was only one way in and one way out. He didn’t really talk and seemed content to sit at his roost all day. Then there was a lady selling a “Jesus Christ Superstar” lp as well as three rusty beyond use hammerheads with no handles, a lid to a kitchen pot, and an old remote control.

If you are lucky you might end up finding something that you actually need, but the flea market is more likely to send you home with useless junk. Jared acquired a new 50 cent hand puppet (that’s a hand puppet that cost 50 cents…I know you what you were thinking…sadly, the head came off later that day- that’s what happens when your puppet is a wanksta), and I got some boiled peanuts that were almost up to Jared’s expectations. According to Jared, only black people know how to make good boiled peanuts. Hopefully I can find myself a good batch of boiled peanuts in this lifetime. Apparently I have yet to taste the brilliance of a perfect batch.

On our way out of the flea market as I was tearing through my peanut bag, some lady ran out and yelled, “Sir, sir you have to come back!!! Come back here!!!” She made it seem as though she suspected either Charley or Jared of stealing something. At first we were reluctant to go back. It seemed as though we might get beat up and we were already 100 ft. away, but we ended up obeying her command. When we got inside the fence she started laughing really hard. It was a bizarre joke and a pretty weird yet fitting way to end our experience at the flea market.

-L

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