I had put off the decision to go- or not to go- long enough.  Stormville, NY is famous for antiques and collectables.  It is located in rural (lower) Upstate NY, which meant I had to travel about two hours south to get there.  It also meant I hardly consider Stormville Upstate, being much closer to Larchmont than it is to Lake Placid.  Still, my wife had given me the go ahead earlier.  She had even cut out the advertisement from the paper and handed it to me.  (My favorite flea market, Stan’s, closed recently and condos are being built in its place.)  But my uncle was in the hospital and I had other things to do instead.  Yet, I had never been to Stormville, I told myself, and being a glorious Spring morning, I decided to put off obligations- the refinishing work and the three or four other things I should have done- and went to find a few vintage fountain pens instead. 

The ride down was as lovely as it could be.  Rather than taking the Taconic Parkway, I took route 9H, a scenic road that meanders through the countryside of Columbia County and leads through or near the Dutch settled towns of Kinderhook, Claverack, and Tachkonic.  Columbia County (and much of the Albany’s Capitol District region) is rich in Dutch history.  Rural Columbia County is full of apple orchards, and apple trees were in early bloom in pink and white blossoms.  Most of the orchards I passed had their name on a rustic wood sign with a small saying underneath.  I liked Love Orchard’s which read, ‘famous for tree-ripe fruit’ and wondered which of the other orchards I passed were not.  Up the road a bit, I noticed a 1990s era Volvo 850 for $450 and I told myself to stop and check it out on the way back.

Stormville Airport Flea Market is just outside Stormville on Route 216.  Hundreds of cars were parked in the fields and I made mental note of my exact location.  Though I had not been to Stormville before, I certainly was no stranger to large antique festivals and flea markets. Rows of vendors (the newspaper said about 600) lined the fields, and it didn’t take me long to realize that I was in the wrong area.  The organizers had separated the vendors with new items from the other kind of flea marketers located at the far other side. 

Having reassigned myself, I methodically approached each booth asking for fountain pens and vintage wrist watches. It soon became clear that vintage watches and pens were going to be scarce. I did find a blue Parker Advertising Jotter.  Click the button and the message changes.  This one had an aviation theme- retreaded aircraft tires! At another booth a woman had a Mont Blanc 149 and a few worn Parkers and Sheaffer’s for sale- $300 for Mont Blanc and $100 each for the remaining pens which included a worn three banded Standard Vacumatic missing its tassie.  I did manage to buy a moiré Skyline from a vendor I have known for about twenty years. 

I finished the flea market by noon and realized I should have left the house much earlier.  That would have got me home by about 10 a.m. leaving plenty of time to do the things I had planned to do.   By the way, on the way back I did stop to look at the $450 Volvo outside the mechanic’s shop.  The car was a 1992 model 850 with 199,000 miles on it.  A white crayon sign on the back window read ‘runs like a Swiss (Swedish) watch’.  And the asking price was $1,450; not the $450 I had seen on the way down. Someone had devilishly obliterated the most important digit from the one spot a driver on the road was likely to see.  That was okay.  In fact, I was relieved.  As I said, I had no intentions…I was out looking for vintage fountain pens.  It had just bothered me to think that I was prepared to pay as much for a vintage pen as someone would pay for what appeared to be a pretty good car. That the car was actually priced one-thousand dollars more made all the difference.