The Hero With a Thousand Purses

Is my flea-market obsession pathetic or a manifestation of man’s eternal search for meaning?

I have a problem with flea markets.
I can’t stop going. They play a much too important part in my life. I try to keep this addiction hidden, as I don’t want to be thought of as one of those poor losers who drives from flea market to flea market, buying even more junk to cram into a house already overflowing with junk.

To make matters worse, I live in Central Florida, the flea market capital of the world. I don’t know why this is. Old people come here and die? Northerners arrive with stuff they don’t need? Would-be entrepreneurs and dreamers see a way to make a quick buck selling Star Wars action figures? There’s even a section on the state tourism website extolling our flea markets as one of the state’s leading attractions.

Why am I so obsessed? What’s wrong with me?

I found my answer in a book called The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell. It’s about the Hero’s Journey. Campbell says that every culture has a version. It’s called the monomyth, and it’s the essential story of humanity. It explains our search for meaning. An ordinary person is called to do something stupendous and dangerous and brave. He must find something, something incredibly important.  And if he does, not only he, but humanity will benefit from his triumph.

Here’s how Campbell describes the journey: “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonders; fabulous forces are encountered, and a decisive victory is won.”

Change “fabulous forces” to “fabulous finds” and you pretty much have it.

So please note. I’m not a loser. I’m a Hero.

According to Professor Campbell, the Hero’s Journey is fraught with danger. Mine sure is. I often have to drive hundreds of miles, and I’m blind in my left eye. I spill my Slurpee. It’s bumper-to-bumper on I-75. I must have cash. It rains. I once ran over a dead alligator. But never mind. As Campbell says, you must “follow your bliss.” What’s important is that feeling of giddy anticipation as you speed on, looking for your decisive victory.

My decisive victory can be many things. Fostoria glass is a current obsession, along with Avon collectibles and unusual lamps. I also like cruise ship memorabilia, 1940s chinoiserie and Rookwood pottery. But the holy grail, the ultimate find, the sacred talisman of my search is a Juicy Couture Daydreamer handbag, circa 1990, with the scarf still attached and the perfect little grouping of bag charms: a cherry, a bejeweled dollar sign and a little leather Scottie. And it has to be pink. Maybe today, I keep telling myself. Maybe today….

Webster Westside:
The Defining Flea Market

Let’s start our journey at Webster. It’s officially called the Webster Westside Flea Market and it’s in a tiny little town about an hour northeast of Tampa. It’s more than 50 years old, and it defines what a flea market is, both the good and the bad.

It’s the perfect size. Just a little too big for the visitor to take in everything on one visit. But you definitely feel it’s worth the $5 parking fee. The atmosphere is pure Middle America, Florida-style. You’ll see family groups, women friends making a day of it, intent older men tracking down a hood ornament, teenagers looking for something cool. It is the custom to bring a wagon with you; you pull it around and load it up with purchases. You will often see a dog in the wagon. Webster is the perfect place for an interspecies outing. Not just great people-watching—great dog-watching too.

It’s a good mix of indoor sheds and outdoor tables. The sheds have marginally better merchandise; the vendors seem more professional and talk about how they sell online. One is famous on YouTube for never shutting up. But the outdoor folks are more fun. Their merchandise runs the gamut.  Bonsai trees, costume jewelry, Civil War relics, cast-iron frying pans, Budweiser signs, tools, toys, old license plates, Matrix action figures, fishing poles, a rooster with a tail that spins in the wind.

Many of them are flea-market nomads who travel around in their campers. These are the old masters, the ones who will impart ancient knowledge to the questing Hero, as Circe did to Odysseus. They know which markets are hot, which ones are slipping, what’s selling and what’s not. They’ll also tell you long stories about their grandchildren and maybe even show you pictures.

Some mentors, like Medea in the story of the Golden Fleece, are there to warn of the perils that may deter even the most determined Hero. I remember the poor frustrated lady who was blowing off steam. This was her first time at Webster; she had come all the way down from Atlanta, and she was furious. Her inventory was high-end cosmetics, and this was just not the place. “It’s all hicks,” she hissed under her breath. “Look at them. CoverGirl, Maybelline, Glimmer Glow. Yuck.”

Yes, there are problems at Webster, but they are the problems of flea markets everywhere: the bathrooms and the food. Some people love the corndogs and kettle corn and overpriced rice bowls. I haven’t tried them. The lines are always too long. But not as long as those for the ancient and hard-to-find bathrooms.

The Red Barn:
A Spiritual Transfiguration

The Red Barn Flea Market in Bradenton is the kind of flea market I used to hate. There is very little vintage, virtually no antiques and far too much Dollar Store stuff. It seems like the sort of place the Hero would skip. Still, I had a spiritual awakening there, so it will always be a cherished part of my journey.

If you’re a Hero looking for transformation, you have come to the right place. It’s full of new identities. You can get a nonsurgical eyelift, you can get your teeth whitened, you can start a new business, insure your spouse’s life, buy biker outfits or try on first responder uniforms. You can even travel! A travel agency is right there and it has special Red Barn cruise excursions.

But amid all this commercialism, you will also sense a spiritual side. Several churches have booths; one offered free Bibles, but they were not sitting there for the taking. You had to promise something to get one. One church even had a real minister, eager to talk to you about Jesus. On this occasion he was conversing with a young man in red shorts and a hoodie. They were talking about how the young man could achieve forgiveness for something he had done if he accepted Jesus as his savior.

I heard this as I passed by and immediately made a detour into the bikini boutique next door and hovered in the doorway. Would the young man accept Jesus? And even more interesting, what did he need to be forgiven for?

I never learned the details, but the young man must have consented, because he and the minister clasped hands and said a prayer, then hugged each other. I moved on, past the Star Trek figures and the cell phone accessories, quite touched at what I had seen.

Indeed, I realized with mounting excitement, Jesus himself had a transformational moment in a flea market, when he threw the moneychangers out of the temple. He understood the inherent conflict between spirituality and commercialism that a flea market represents. Surely it was an important encounter on his journey, and it all has a deep metaphorical significance that I’m still trying to figure out late at night when I can’t fall asleep.

Mr. G’s: A World of
Supernatural Wonder

It’s time for the Hero to venture into the world of “supernatural wonders.” This takes him to Mr. G’s Flea Market in Palmetto, billed as “La Pulga de la Raza.” This translates as “The Flea of the Race,” slightly misleading as “raza” is more about national identity than race. But once you enter the gate and pay the $2 parking fee, you have entered a new world. It’s called Mexico.

Just as Dorothy opened the door of her drab, crushed Kansas farmhouse to discover the technicolor world of Oz, you are now in vibrant rural Mexico. Almost all the customers are Mexican (or Guatemalan or from El Salvador). Gringo faces are rare. Spanish is the only language you hear, and three competing bands play mariachi music.

Mexican flea markets have long been a tradition in Florida. I used to consider them intimidating. Guns were being sold, along with animals and all sorts of things that looked like the sellers needed a license. You quickly learned not to take pictures.

That’s all changed. Mr. G’s couldn’t be more family-friendly. It has a bounce house and pony rides and many families make a day of it. It’s open only on Sunday, traditionally the day for family outings in Mexico.

The merchandise reflects the Mexican taste. There is a lot of formalwear for quinceanera parties, and if you’re looking for Western belts and boots, this is the place. It’s also good for replica items: things that might be Gucci until you look a little closer. Lots of cologne, too; brands that sound a little odd, like High Class Woman. Shapewear on mannequins. Religious items: candles, pictures, wall hangings, statues, including some that are very elaborate. And out in back, a large selection of Mexican-centric fruits and vegetables: cilantro, chilis, peppers, nopales, guava and all sorts of bananas.

A little food court is located right in the middle, with a mariachi band playing all afternoon. Here the Hero might want to sit at a table and reflect on what surrounds him. He has literally gone to another world and is dazzled by what he is seeing. Oddly enough, almost every Hero myth has an episode in a bar or tavern (think of “Star Wars”), and this is mine. I marvel at Mr. G’s clients. They are in the middle of their own journeys—a new life in a new land, one much more dramatic and life-changing than our Hero’s own, which is basically to find a new purse.

After several Modelo beers and a chorus or two of “La Media Vuelta,” our Hero’s memory delves back to where his journey started. It was in Mexico, appropriately enough. As a naïve, unformed 12-year-old he was taken by his mother to the famous La Lagunilla flea market in Mexico City. It was known back in those days as the Thieves’ Market, as people often found things that had been stolen from them a week or two earlier.

Like Elon Musk getting his first model rocket, that’s where my journey first started. I made my first purchase. A painting in the Mexican folk style of three young women in flowing white garments entitled “Science and Religion Sustaining Humanity.” It was dated 1903. I paid fifty pesos ($4). I still have it.

Let me repeat that. I still have the first thing I ever bought at a flea market. Sixty eight years ago.

The Bazaar on Apricot and Lime:
A Community of Searchers

As he journeys along, the Hero will meet friends and allies. These are people who are also searching for their authentic truth. You can meet many of these people at a place like The Bazaar on Apricot and Lime in downtown Sarasota. Their flea market is artist-driven—hand-created jewelry, clothing, artworks—where  the big attraction is the passion of the vendors themselves.

I should know. That’s where I sell my stuff. I have it on consignment with Jess, one of the 40 or so vendors. Jess sells vintage, but a special kind of vintage. It’s called Y2K, and it’s the stuff that was popular back at the turn of the century 25 years ago. Think Paris Hilton, Madonna, Victoria’s Secret, Betsey Johnson, but most of all, Juicy Couture, that glorious, over-embellished hodgepodge of handbags, jewelry and tracksuits that was the rage for a year or two.

Jess has a booth at the Bazaar, open four days a week. But that’s only the beginning of her authentic truth. She does shows that travel around. Just last weekend she had a booth at the Punk Flea Market in Sarasota’s Municipal Auditorium, and next week she has another vintage clothing market at a parking lot up in Tampa.

Here at the Bazaar nobody thinks you’re weird just because you have 75 Juicy Couture handbags that you love to show off. They’re exactly the same. And all the vendors watch out for each other. Recently, when one appeared in “Steel Magnolias” at the Manatee Players, everybody went to see her. They have live music on weekends, special events like vintage fashion shows and Jimmy Buffett Day. There’s even a Young Entrepreneurs Market for vendors under 17. True, there was a problem with one vendor—he was hogging too much table space—but it’s a harmonious group of people, as Jess puts it, “doing what their heart tells them to do.”

Jess’s heart is very demanding. I cringe at the thought of loading up the car at dawn, setting up a portable dressing room and selling all day in the hot sun, then taking everything down and driving home and unloading the car after dark. But that is her journey, and it has made her an acknowledged expert in the world of Juicy Couture. Yet her energy remains focused on her beautiful things, not the money. I’ll never forget how excited she got when I showed her a purse she had never seen before.

Friendships are formed. Sometimes more than friendships. Jess is now dating Melvin, the guy who sells the collectible T-shirts. They’re even doing markets together. Their passions are merging, in a particularly flea-market way. It’s like a Lifetime movie, only with better art direction and a more believable plot.

Renninger’s:
The Cave of the Dragon

My flea-market friend Virginia called me and told me she had just returned from Renninger’s Flea Market in Mount Dora and that she had seen a Juicy Couture purse that was “real nice.” No stains, no color transfer, no wear on the velour.  Classic pink with several amusing bag charms. Yes, she remembered the price because it was so reasonable. $20. She was kicking herself for not having bought it for me.

“Where in the flea market?” I demanded. She got a little vague. Renninger’s is a big place and what she was describing didn’t ring a bell. She just knew it was way in the back and far away from the parking.

I left early the next morning, Sunday. It’s a 2 1/2-hour drive but never had I been so excited. I was about to enter the cave of the dragon and find that purse, my talismanic equivalent of the golden ring in Lord of the Rings. I imagined a picture of me holding the purse on the cover of Flea Market Monthly.

I’d been to Renninger’s before, of course. It may be the best all-around flea market in Florida, a sort of super-deluxe version of Webster. There’s a whole indoor antique section, and many of the vendors operate out of cute little sheds and huts. It’s like a little flea-market village.

I got there and set to work. Virginia said it was an outdoor booth, which worried me. That velour fades very easily in direct sunlight and I didn’t want it getting scorched. It was already in the 90s.

The sun was brutal and I forgot to bring a hat. Fortunately, I was at a flea market, so I bought one for a dollar. I went down aisle after aisle, my eyes racing over everything, the way I have learned to do. But I kept getting distracted. Some amazing Elvis-themed belts demanded a quick look. Then some unusual ashtrays. You could hear distant thunder, and some of the vendors were starting to pack. Three more aisles, I told myself, and I started moving faster. So fast that I stepped in a tent-pole hole and twisted my ankle. I felt like I was fighting the dragon and he was winning.

Then I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. It was a button. But not just any button. This was a Chanel button, and if you know your Chanel buttons, you knew this was a premium example. Gold filigree, tiny pearls, the intertwined double C. Buttons that fetch $100 each on eBay.

The button was attached to the cuff of a garment I couldn’t quite figure out. It was hanging from a rack next to some India-print sundresses and long denim skirts. I gingerly began to examine it.

It took a while. Then it all came into focus. It was a blouse, but it had only one sleeve. Just my luck, I thought, until I realized it was designed that way. Very haute couture. The label said Chanel. It looked authentic. Pure white silk and excellent condition. Could it be? Was this a real one-sleeved Chanel blouse? I believed it was! I looked at the price: $15.

I bought it, of course. I laid it carefully on the back seat and drove home. It was in perfect condition. After getting it dry cleaned—the first cleaner refused to accept it, saying his insurance didn’t cover anything so obviously expensive—I took it to the highest-end consignment store in town. The next day, a familiar-looking woman who was settling her parents into a retirement facility across the street walked in, took one look and bought it—for $525. And as the flustered volunteers at the consignment store couldn’t wait to tell me, that woman was Hollywood star Renée Zellweger.

At last! I had achieved my decisive victory, an incredible collision of haute couture, Hollywood glamour, financial profit—and me. All those years of searching had finally paid off. I was not a loser or a hoarder. I was a Hero who had triumphed on humanity’s noblest quest. And most important, I found transformative meaning in the aisles of a Florida flea market. What more could I ever ask for?

Robert Plunket is an architecture critic, magazine journalist and novelist. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Barrons, the Atlantic and Time magazine.
His novels My Search for Warren Harding and Love Junkie were recently reissued by New Directions Publishing.