Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 2, 1995 TAG: 9506020042
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ADRIANNE BEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
You also can look at Leo's collection at the Pulaski County Flea Market on Saturday and Sunday at the New River Valley Fairgrounds. Sponsored by the Dublin Lions Club, Cecil looks forward to the event he's been attending twice a year for the past 21 years.
When his employer, Burlington Industries, closed in 1988, Cecil decided to build the white building next door to his house, off of Exit 94 right past the Red Carpet Inn. He began filling it with the bottles he has been digging for since the '70s. "I really don't know how to describe all the junk I've got," Leo says as he sits on the back steps and scratches his head.
"Junk?" Leo's wife, Markeatter, says in disbelief. "You never let me call your stuff 'junk.'''
"I can call it 'junk,' but you can't" Leo Cecil answers with a smile that crinkles up his face, his eyes disappearing for just a moment.
He divides the wares at his shop into distinct categories. "It's not just antiques, I've got primitives, lots of collectibles and lots of what I call 'other.'''
Cecil has been known to lay out some of his stuff at the flea markets with a sign that reads: "What is it?"
"People start trying to guess what these things are for. Sometimes Leo doesn't even know," Markeatter Cecil says and laughs.
"I like to listen to these men explaining to their wives what things are. They're usually wrong, but I just keep quiet. I don't want to burst their balloons," Leo Cecil says.
A gray-haired woman walks into the shop and asks to see what Leo has in the way of buttons. Moments later she drops 40 cents into Leo's palm and leaves with a handful of different-colored buttons. "Where are you from ?" Leo Cecil asks as she turns to climb into a mini-van with her husband. "Maryland," she answers.
Leo's Antiques, lying right off the Interstate, apparently gets its share of out-of-state traffic. Some people come just to browse; others have more specific desires. "Someone collects everything," Cecil explains. "I've even had people come in here looking for old firecracker wrappers."
One woman from Massachusetts apparently found a bottle she had been seeking for 20 years in Leo's shop. It was a Wheaton bottle, bearing her family's name. When she found it, Markeatter Cecil says, the woman exclaimed, "I've been looking all over the country for this. You ain't gonna rob me, are you? You know I want this."
Leo Cecil doesn't appear to be out to rob anyone. "I don't get rich or expect to get rich off this," he explains. He claims the best part of his business is meeting people. "You realize what a small world this is."
He recants how a man in a motor home pulled into his driveway one day, and conversation revealed that he lived on the same street as Leo's brother in New Bedford, Mass. "Another man that came in, it turns out we'd been to his family's shop in Rhode Island the week before," Leo says.
Like Leo Cecil's clutter, the Pulaski County Flea Market has increased in size over the years. "Last year we had 800 dealers, it's increased tenfold since the start," says Cecil, who started the flea market with Willard Akers.
Whether you collect cows, shoes or horse bits, the Pulaski County Flea Market is sure to have something to interest you. For collectors of painful dental tools, Cecil even has a box full of teeth pullers. "I grew up in the country of Wythe County," Markeatter Cecil explains. "My grandfather would pull our teeth out with these." She is holding thick iron pliers with a gripper on the end just big enough for a tooth. It's painful just to look at them.
Akers hopes to see 10,000 people each day at the Flea Market. "We're proud to be helping others," Akers says. "We use our money mainly to help sight and hearing."
The Pulaski County High School Lady Cougars basketball team and band, and Fairlawn Lions Club are a few of the organizations Akers cited as being involved in the festivities.
"Money made from past flea markets has gone towards the building of a local recreation field, given new uniforms to band members, and helped the Salavation Army," Akers says.
Free parking, junk, antiques, yard sale miscellany. A thrifty bargain hunter's dream. For more information on the Pulaski County Flea Market this Saturday and Sunday, contact the Dublin Lions Club at 674-2754.
by CNB