This afternoon, I dumped a few items at the Whole Foods on Broad Street for the “first-Saturday-of-the-month recycle anything” day. (This was the last one of these, I was told). Lots of broken-down items and materials were dumped in the bins and trailers.

Later, I went to the flea market at the state fairgrounds. I didn’t see anyone from the Whole Foods. In fact, I didn’t spot one Prius or Volkswagen in the fairgrounds parking lot. And at the flea market, I saw much of the same junk that the Whole Foodsers had been disposing of, except it all had price tags attached.

It really is stark, the difference in the crowds at a Triangle Whole Foods versus the fairgrounds flea market. I think I’m usually thinking of the Whole Foods crowd when I tell someone who lives in the Northeast that I don’t really live in what they think of us at “The South”.

Anyway, it had been many years since I had been to the flea market. Last time I was there, people were selling puppies. That appears to have stopped. There’s some progress.

I did buy something at the flea market…soup.

I bought soup from Maine at the flea market…and I think it costs more than any soup you’d get at Whole Foods.