Daily Kent Stater

The sign at the Hartville line reads "The strength of our village is its people." Driving into town on State Route 619, on my way to the famous Labor Day flea market, I fail to pass a single pedestrian and see few motorists. Where are the people?

Then I crest the hill above Market Street. Traffic stops, and the crossroads clog with swarming shoppers. Panel vans, cargo trucks and buses are lined row after row around the old Hartville Kitchen building.

I remember what Lindsay Fisher from the chamber of commerce told me: "All of us Hartvillians don't go into town on flea market days."

Booth after booth line the gravel paths that cut across the fields. Ceramic poodles with pink mange must share space with a television in the shape of a astronaut's helmet and a fierce Aztec warrior cast in yellowed plastic. Baby boomers sift through bins of baseball cards, dolls and 1960's issues of Boy's Life -- the detritus of childhood.

An older man stands behind his booth. Boxes of comic books compete with candy dishes for space on the long tables. A spray of golf clubs sit in a garbage can. A small, handwritten sign invites me to "look at the frog collection."

"I'm just like Buddy's Carpet," the proprietor of this booth tells a woman inspecting two frog trinkets, each the size of a big toe. "I don't want to make money, I just want to sell it all."

Intrigued, I walk closer. About 20 frogs are clustered on the edge of the table. Bullfrogs, tree frogs, frogs crusted with shells. A dark-green frog reclines saucily, arms behind its head.

"I go to auctions or garage sales, end up nodding my head and leave with a big pile of stuff," the man says.

He came across the frog collection that way. Picking them up, he shows me the most unique ones in the collection. This one is a salt shaker, that one dispenses cotton balls.

He calls himself Bob, from Medina. He declines to give a last name, but he allows me to sit with him by his van.

"It's mostly for older people," he says of being a vendor. For four years it has been a way to get out of the house. "You're not going to get rich from it."

Most people want to talk more than they want to buy something. A woman in a straw hat and flag-patterned shopping bag comes to the tables. She has a question about the frogs.

"How much for the little earrings?" she asks.

"Five bucks," Bob says. He brings the dangling frogs from their plastic case .

"I'll take them." She rustles through her bag for the money.

After giving change, Bob comes back to the van. He says he spends most of the time sitting here and listening.

"Sometimes I wish people wouldn't talk as long as they do," he says. "But, you know, they might be older people and they want to talk to someone about their troubles and all."

Leaving Bob, I run into the fence that bisects the market. The phenomenon of Hartville's flea market has two parts. The Hartville flea market clusters around the old Hartville Kitchen. Byler's flea market occupies the fields to the west.

Saul Miller and his son Howard started the Hartville flea market in 1939 as a livestock auction, says current owner Marion Coblentz. Since then it has grown, bringing about a million visitors to Hartville every year and averaging 25,000 on Labor Day.

"There's quite a big flea market culture," he says. "A lot of the vendors here go to Florida and Texas in the winter, then come back here in the summer."

Every vacation Coblentz visits flea markets to learn new techniques and of course to browse.

The heart of the culture is the opportunity to exercise the basics of a free market system, he says.

But nothing, not even the chance to haggle, is breaking the boredom for Gladys and Jake Ziffendel. They amuse themselves with hand radios they brought to keep in touch with each other around the market.

"I need a price check on that," Jake calls to Gladys, who is standing three feet away. They laugh. Gladys explains they are trying to pass time while waiting for their antique hunting relative.

But what have they found?

"There's a whole lot of nothing," Gladys says, holding out her empty hands.

Jake cradles a larger-than-life Heineken bottle cap. He says it was an afterthought.

"I'm looking for junk," he says, "used condoms mostly."

I leave the Ziffendels to their giddiness and head for the produce market. The air smells earthy with vegetables. One vendor explains the difference between super-sweet and sugar-enhanced sweet corn while another extols the virtues of his Hungarian seed stock.

Past the fruits and vegetables a man is selling records. The Beatles' Abbey Road lays on the edge of the bin, prompting me to investigate, but the collection peters out into Ringo's solo efforts. I decide to forgo the albums and the console turntable at the adjacent booth.

I've been here for two hours, and I'm getting like the Ziffendels -- bored. Then I come upon Marjorie R. Smith. She's a small woman dressed in a white turtleneck and flag-patterned vest.

She tells me she came from the Rogers flea market, in Columbiana County, last night. She and her son made only $20, and it cost them $14 to set up.

"Oh, he collects all sorts of things," Marjorie says of her son, John. She arranges the shabby collection of Pizza Hut hand puppets from "Casper" and "The Land Before Time." The set of five costs $20. Then she grabs a set of coins. They are 50 years old, she tells me, and feature a president, his wife and a major accomplishment. They only cost a dollar.

"He's has been collecting coins since he was 10 years old," Marjorie says of John, who is talking to a customer. "We used to have a hobby store."

By her own estimate, Smith has been doing flea markets for "years and years," but a good estimate for the 82-year-old is 50 years, including the 30 she worked for a gas company.

I ask her if she likes vending. Another crease, this one a frown, crosses her face.

"No, I don't like it," she says in \hushed voice. "I don't like it at all."

The Ali-Frazier boxing dolls are not selling today and everywhere she goes, too many people come to browse and not enough buy.

"You ask them if they want something and they say "just looking," Smith explains. "I want to say 'well maybe I'm just closing up my booth.'"

She is also ill from last night's trip in the rusted panel van. She touches her stomach and mutters about her "nerves."

After talking with Smith, I realize I'm thirsty. The lemonade looks good, but tastes gamey -- like dishwater. I look around me and realize Bob was right, most of the people here are old.

Then I come across Eric Vanchoff and Mark Kaschner. Kaschner proudly displays their prize for the day, a dart board in a cabinet. Lifting the gold lettered lid, he shows off the slate score board and numerous nicks from errant throws.

Vanchoff and Kaschner, both students at Kent State, are looking for apartment furnishings, particularly quirky conversation pieces.

"People are asking a lot of money for a lot of trash here," Vanchoff says. "The prices are out of control."

Kaschner says he grew up in nearby Green and came to the flea market several times as a kid.

"Not a lot has changed," he says. "It's different to look at it now because I'm older, but it's probably the same people who used to set up."

The sky darkens and more and more shoppers are heading for their cars. I do the same, leaving behind the frogs, poodles and people of the Hartville Flea Market.