From Golden Isles Parkway to Bargain Isles Beltway, the ‘longest’ yard sale in Georgia has it all

You can shop in a grassy field south of Barnesville and buy a Coca-Cola bottle opener not far from where the man who invented Coke was born.

I know this because we had a field day there last week. It didn’t have a price tag, but Jackie Lovejoy sold it to us for a quarter.  Her husband, Clay, leaned against his truck and nodded approvingly at the 25-cent transaction, even though his late father was an antique dealer and that stainless steel, bottle-shaped opener had been a family heirloom of sorts.

The state’s “longest” yard sale is not a place for sentimental
attachment.  

Welcome to the annual “Peaches to the Beaches Yard Sale.” Or the “Beaches to the Peaches.’’ Our
perspective depends on our genesis and terminus on U.S. 341.  

The 224-mile shopping spree stretches like a slingshot across 11 counties. Barnesville, once known as the “Buggy Capital of the South,” is the official starting gate. The finish line is in Brunswick, where we can skip across Sidney Lanier’s Marshes of Glynn and stick your toe in the ocean on the coast of St. Simons.

Don’t expect one-stop shopping. It’s mostly stop-and-go shopping. We tap our brakes as we travel from one man’s trash to another man’s treasure.

Over the past 18 years, Peaches to Beaches has become a tradition on the second Friday and Saturday in March. It’s the time of year when Highway 341, which will turn 100 years old next year, transitions to an open-air thrift store and Smithsonian of pocketbooks and socket wrenches. 

We imagine folks spring cleaning their attics, closets and garages, then dumping them in front yards, pecan orchards and church parking lots. There are pop-up shops at the end of driveways, along fence lines, in the shadows of old sheds and on the tailgates of Ford F-150s. 

For 33 business hours, the Golden Isles Parkway is the Bargain Aisles Beltway. We swear that
Smiley’s Flea Market has been miniaturized and cloned in every little town along the way.

My professional shopper wife led the charge, and we began our “junkin’ journey” at 9:12 a.m. last Friday in downtown Barnesville. We didn’t call it a wrap until late in the afternoon when we stuffed a 72-inch bench into the back of our Highlander at the corner of Broad Street and South Dooley Street in Hawkinsville. 

The top of the wooden bench had a previous life as a door from a church in Mexico because, after all, everybody and everything has a story.

After nine hours, we had managed to cover only one-third (77 miles) of the marathon rummage sale, stocked with everything from pocket knives to Pez Dispensers, bobbleheads to Barbie dolls and Norman Rockwell prints to “See Rock City” signs. 

Veni. Vidi. Visa. (We came. We saw. We spent.)

Life is 98% of stuff we don’t need but buy anyway to claim our participation trophies. It’s our dollar bill of rights to claim a vintage hat that was a veteran of a half-dozen other yard sales before it finally called our names. Or to purchase a souvenir ashtray someone brought back from Gatlinburg and has been bouncing around as a white elephant gift ever since.

We eventually realize some of these sellers should be paying us to take it all away.

But we hold our ground.

It’s called the thrill of the hunt.  

At the edge of Culloden, I almost forked over $5 for a pair of red boxing gloves but fought off the impulse and kept my money in my pocket. I also resisted the lure of a giant universal remote for $2 that would be next to impossible to lose. If it didn’t work, at least I could always use it as a doorstop.

We pulled over near Musella and met a man from Thomaston who was wearing a ladies’ mink stole. He insisted it wasn’t road kill. He paid only $5 for it, so that stole was a steal. He laughed and said he was going to wear it to the biggest redneck bar he could find.  

Dozens of vendors lined the sidewalks at the city park in Roberta, flanked by the old train depot (now the chamber of commerce) and a Dollar General store at the north end across U.S. 80.

We bought some goat milk soap from former Crawford County Sheriff Kerry Dunaway, had grilled hamburgers from the 3 Lakes Ranch in Knoxville and discussed the merits of barbecue sauce and  classic board games with a couple of vendors.

Along the way, we caught glimpses, in various forms, of Milton Bradley, Marilyn Monroe, Hank Aaron, Duck Dynasty, Elvis, Madame Alexander and Mr. Coffee.  

At times, Highway 341 was a clogged artery. Traffic moved at the speed of a stagecoach. We endured 20 minutes of bumper-to-bumper misery in Fort Valley. Usually, the only time traffic backs up there is when the train rolls through on the east end of Main Street or there is a shift change at the Bluebird Bus plant near Five Points.

After sitting through the jam I wasn’t in much of a buying mood. But I did pretend to jam when I picked up a guitar made out of old license plates under the shed at Marvin Crafter Park. 

I also found a copy of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “That’s The Way’’ at the top of a stack of 45 rpm vinyl records selling for $1 apiece. It’s hard to believe that song came out 50 years ago.  

Who needs a Big Lots store when you have a big lot along Keith Road outside of Perry? After parking at our peril along the crowded highway a few miles east of Sam Nunn’s old farmhouse, we went table-hopping and browsed everything from fabric softener to cast iron skillets and homemade jams to hardwood flooring. 

My wife picked up a deal on some depression glass from a couple of snowbirds, who split time between Florida and Indiana. Down the road, the heavy traffic crawled through tiny Clinchfield, which doesn’t even have a stoplight. At a vendor booth at the First Baptist Church of Haynesville, I reintroduced myself to a lady who had sold us a Cherry Blossom wreath two years ago. She was pleased when I told her we will have it hanging on our front door for the next two weeks.

Shopping does require a different set of muscles. Sorry, but I don’t have that shop-’til-you-drop stamina. As the clock moved closer to supper, I was ready to turn the wheels toward home.

I did allow myself to wax sentimental one last time. It was somehow fitting we ended our adventure in the parking lot at First Baptist Church of Hawkinsville, where my parents were married 70  years ago.

There were peaches and beaches back in those days, but no giant yard sale to connect the dots.

Ed Grisamore wants everyone to know he spent only $1.25, but his wife more than made up for his thriftiness.