Audio Journeys – The Anderson Jockey Lot

Paul and I made our annual trek to the Anderson Jockey Lot. We always try to take a newbie with us – someone not yet immersed in southern flea market culture. Lately this has been a new faculty member at Furman, and this year was no different. Karen Buckmeuller was our victim this time. She couldn’t convince her new husband, Herman Holt, to come along with us. Several others were also supposed to go with us, but wimped out, too.

As I’ve learned, the denizens of the Jockey Lot get very nervous around cameras, and with good reason. We saw several less-than-legal items for sale. I was still able to snap a few shots, though. Most useful was the little Sansa Clip recorder. I clipped it to my shirt and left it recording the entire time we were there. I got some fascinating conversations. I’ve edited it down to the best clips and added a little background music, then posted it to Boomp3.com. It’s about six minutes long.

boomp3.com

In this audio clip, you will here the following, in order:

• Question about the price of a Megatron helmet
• Haggling over the sale of a car
• A discussion about a breed of dog
• The benefits of using fake security cameras
• A bird saleslady
• A call to repentance for stealing cars
• A discussion of spicy pickled tomatoes
• How society has been destroyed
• The problems with Dale Earnhardt candles and Teresa Earnhardt
• Good beans
• Night blooming plants
• A rooster crowing
• Another dog salesman
• And finally, selling big time

There were several more conversations I would have loved to have captured.

I took the audio clip and edited it into smaller bits using Audacity. Then I used Acid Music to mix the clips with a copyright-free WAV loop.

As I mentioned, I was able to get a few shots. This shot of a vendor’s T-Shirt pretty much sums up the attitude we saw at the Jockey Lot:

“It’s not illegal unless you get caught.”  Just think.  We could have purchased DVDs of WALL-E, You Don’t Mess with the Lohan, Ironman, and several other current-run movies that aren’t available on DVD yet.

Then there was the weaponry…

Mostly it was knives and long guns, but there was the occasional assault rifle and multi-round clip out there, too.

Of course, there were the other vendors, including some selling roosters for unspecified purposes.

Cool hats seemed to be the theme of the day…

…or possibly somewhat disturbing hats.

We popped inside for a bit, but concentrated most of our efforts on the tables outside.  However, by lunchtime we were worn out, and ready to find something to eat non-Jockey Lot related.  It was time to go.

Karen handled her first trip without any problems.  During the visit she asked how the place got its name.  I had to confess that I didn’t know.  Doing a Google search on “jockey lot” -Anderson turns up similarly named flea markets in other states.  I did finally find something on a Roots Web discussion forum

In "The Writers' Program Guide" of 1939, it states - County court day here is the second Monday of each month, and at this time every man in the country who can comes in to "Jockey Lot" to talk and trade ... guns, watches, knives, harness, wagons, horses, mules, dogs, - anything and everything that can be "swapped" or sold is "fetched in".

In "You All Spoken Here", 1984, - Jockey lot - a flea market, originally an open space near the courthouse where, on Tuesdays of court week, horses were swapped. Horse traders were known as jockeys.

Taken from - "A Dictionary of American Regional English".

I guess that explains it.

[tags]Jockey lot, flea market, audio, voices, phoography[/tags]