Even though the event closed down early due to impending thunderstorm, thousands of people walked downtown Main Street in Salem Saturday for Olde Salem Days. In addition to the wall-to-wall craft vendor tents, there was a car show, a kid’s area, and a food court.
Marilyn Brewer from Salem has attended the event for 15 years. “I love it! First of all, I like the book sale. I love to read and you can get first rate books for nothing practically.” She hits the book sale first, then takes them back to her car parked at the Salem Civic Center via the shuttle, “because they’re too heavy to lug around the rest of the day.”
“I am so enthralled by the people’s intuitiveness and knowledge of crafts. I have no imagination, but you come down here and look at the crafts like painted feathers, driftwood, that they put a painted animal inside a knothole or something. It’s unbelievable the different variety of things that you see that people do; it’s wonderful.”
Her sister had an order in for some shirts with animals on them. “If you’re looking for it, I promise you’ll find it here.”
She says she’s bought bird feeders and wind chimes, and cookie jars in the past. This time around, Brewer was looking for decorations to hang on the wall.
Among the belly button rings and hand painted metal bookmarks was a stand holding bowl shaped vinyl records – they were old “33’s” melted and shaped into bowls and they garnered a lot of attention.
Trish Phelps with “Twist of Nature” in Roanoke created them. She says her sister-in-law gave her one many years ago as a gag gift, “but I experimented until I figured out how to do it myself, and then I thought they were just such a conversation piece.” “It’s cute to see young kids because they don’t know what a record is, and so I’ve had some parents tell them, ‘Oh, it’s music like your CD’, and they’re going, ‘Is a CD in there?’ and you’re like, ‘No, no, no’.”
She gets the albums from yard sale, Goodwill, etc. She says they’re usually damaged anyway. “The 33s are better and it’s more the ‘70’s and on-the older, Victoria-like records are too thick and get all sticky and waxy so you can’t melt those very well.”
Various civic groups in Salem have been involved in putting on Old Salem Days for 32 years and event organizer Skip Lautenschlager says putting on the show is a “pretty big job.” “It’s a year-long endeavor.” They’ll start planning for next year’s craft show in a week or so. Barney Horrell also helped organize the event and says about 130 people from the club participate. “We also involve the Boy Scout troops and After Prom and some of those groups to help with the barricades.”
Laudenschlager says the downtown merchants started the event that was later supported by the Jaycees and then the Rotary Club took it over. Some estimates say that as many as 60,000 people attend. According to Horrell, “All the proceeds that comes from this are turned around and every penny is of it is donated back to local charities and some international charity organizations.”
– Beverly Amsler