My wife Candice and I attended Market In The Park today, August 3, 2024, in our hometown of West Liberty, Kentucky. However, today's event was not held in the park as it has been in several years in the past. Due to an unpredictable forecast with a lot of possible rain, the event was moved to the Morgan County Wellness and Youth Center which sits on a piece of property which is outside town proper by about a half mile but still within the city limits. The building has a gymnasium, bowling alley, and exercise equipment with a large paved, but poorly engineered, parking area which has too many parking spaces which are too small and make parking difficult in a well attended event, especially when the lot is filled with oversized pickup trucks. Cars and trucks were parked along the grassy edges of the lot and in an unpaved area across from the main entrance. But it all seemed to work out well in general.
The attendance was even larger than I had anticipated. I have no idea how many vendors were present but it must have been somewhere between 75 and 100. There were also a few local musicians, none of which struck as particularly talented. I had decided to attend this year because the renowned folk artist Minnie Adkins, whom I know slightly was listed as a vendor. I had just seen Minnie on July 20, 2024, at the annual Minnie Adkins Day in her hometown of Sandy Hook in adjoining Elliott County. But she is now 90 years old and I treasure every minute I can spend in her company. The first person I saw when I entered the building was Minnie who was involved in a warm hug with Danny Gevedon, a retired banker and used car dealer from West Liberty whom I have known and had an acquaintanceship with for about twenty years since the bank he was working for had some business with us. Danny is also a pretty good woodworker and has been a vendor at this event in the past. But he was not selling any craft works today. I walked toward them saying, "the next hug is mine" meaning a hug from Minnie. But both stepped toward me and we wound up in a three way hug which was a nice surprise. Then I quickly encountered a local retired prison captain who, along with his wife, I had sold several loads of good collectible glass for when I was still running my auction house. We engaged in a fairly long catching up conversation when we were approached by our former Commonwealth Attorney who did my taxes for several years. I had not seen either of these men in several years and had long conversations with both. Then I went to Minnie's table and had a brief conversation with her and she surprised me by giving me a small painting of a bird, pictured above, which I will treasure for the rest of my life. It is only a 4" x 4" canvas on a small wooden easel. It is not the only Minnie Adkins piece I have in my collection but this one is different since it was a gift from the artist and I bought the others. Minnie and I also caught up on the recent serious health problems of her cousin Tim Lewis who has had another brief hospitalization at the VA Hospital in Huntington, West Virginia. Tim is also a Kentucky folk artist who has a few pieces in the Smithsonian Museum where Minnie also has pieces. My wife then told me that our friend Steve Sargent was selling shade lamps which he makes using empty whiskey bottles and I moved to his booth where Candice had selected a lamp she wanted to buy. But I wasn't carrying my check book. No Problem! He sold it to me on credit. I am a regular at a grocery store which his father-in-law and wife operated near my house. We actually went to the store for lunch after we left Market In The Park.
Most of the vendors were selling more craft works than art works and I wasn't interested in buying any of those. We did buy a few cucumbers, miniature tomatoes, and banana peppers from a woman who remembered Candice from her days long ago working at the local food stamp office. We also had brief conversations with a few others who we knew for a variety of reasons. There was a couple who used to attend my auctions, our local county extension agent who was also present at Minnie Adkins day last month in Sandy Hook, a local school board member whom we have known for several years, and one or two others who had known us for a variety of reasons in the past. Events like this are always fun to attend in West Liberty since this community and county has actually done a wonderful job of maintaining a variety of rapidly disappearing aspects of a tight knit community which many other places of roughly the same size have long lost. I have always felt that the West Liberty tornado in 2012 which destroyed a great deal of the town and killed 6 people had a lot to do with the continued cohesiveness of our community. Another event, now cancelled, which helped to keep that sense of community intact was the annual summer event which used to be held to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Known as the Morgan County Cancer Walk, it was well attended and supported by a variety of people in the community and, for a few years, actually had the highest per capita donations in the state. This has always been a very supportive community for such events and they have also molded the community into a deeply connected and caring place to live.
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