Author: Theophanes Avery

Theophanes Avery is a whimsical travel blogger that is hopelessly in love with New England and all it's weird places, people, and things. Besides running way too many blogs they are the author of three books, at least one of them good, and they also enjoy raising aquarium fish in Walsted tanks, sculpting, Sharpie doodling, knitting, tattooing leather, homesteading, and whatever other hobby tickles their raging ADD. Less fortunately they are a hopelessly impoverished spoonie yelling to the world, "WE NEED MORE COMMUNITY!" but alas no one's listening. Make sure to find them on the FaceBook. They love new oddball friends. Fly the freak flag high my darlings!

Stone House Antiques – Chester Vermont

After having earlier that day hit Vermont Antique Mall and already being slightly overwelmed at the size and amount of antiques we started to go for broke. It was my companion’s vacation after all. So we looked up another place somewhat in the area and came up with the Stone House Antiques.

This is where things started to go off the rails as the GPS brought us to the middle of nowhere, over every pothole in the state, and we had to pull over and park in a nice church yard to regain our bearings and beg the phone for directions. Luckily at this point the phones still worked and we made our way easily to the appropriate parking lot.

Once again we were gifted a large market to explore with fancy bougie antiques on the first floor and the devil’s nostalgia pit in the basement. Upstairs the only thing that caught my attention was this weird blue glass baby bottle which for some unknown reason had two baby faces on the neck like a reversible doll. From afar it was pretty but up close it had old timey mental institution vibes. Just whhhy?

The basement proved even more fun. My companion was horrified by a cherub box which to be fair Doctor Who does imply cherubs are just baby Weeping Angels… I on the other hand was stopped in my tracks by a bowl that for no reason I could see had a ceramic clown head with a gaping mouth affixed to it. What is that even for?! Also pleeeease stop buying small children clowns. They’re not fun, they’re deeply traumatizing!

By now I’d discovered the “portrait” button on my cell phone’s camera which makes anything in the center of the photo crystal clear and anything beyond it whispy, dream-like, and out of focus. Would you believe this makes all the haunted dolls, possessed knickknacks, and suggestive clowns I find EVEN CREEPIER? I know, it’s a fact that charmed me so much I almost wish people still bought calendars… or conversation pieces to hang on their wall.

We were well satisfied picking through this place but by now we were a bit punch drunk on antiquing so we thought we’d find food… and that’s where everything started to go topside but that is a story for tomorrow.

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Vermont Antique Mall – Quechee Vermont

I realize I have not given much love to Vermont on this blog, and it’s not that I don’t adore Vermont (it’s actually my favorite of the New England states, shhhh) it’s just I rarely have the spoons to drive many hours into the mountains to somewhere that may or may not be open during a random off season day. But this time I had company so it at least was a little more exciting, perhaps too exciting at times as kidnapping my companion for a few days to play in Vermont with me started with a midnight drive around and around Rhode Island searching for ANY exit that wasn’t closed for construction! It was like living through the lyrics if Hotel California – you can check in but you can never leave…

But we did make it north, had a nice little sleep and immediately got up to go give Vermont a friendly poke. We’d learned that generally speaking the antique stores with the blandest names were often the largest and there’s nothing lacking more imagination than the Vermont Antique Mall. It just screams antiques. In Vermont. Come get em’.

Luckily this observation turned out to be true for this store. It was large! And surrounded by other quaint little Vermonty stores in the same Plaza, er village. There was a liquor store for the adults, an ice cream parlor for the kids, and randomly an alpaca fiber store with real live alpacas outside to greet guests. Wasn’t expecting that but it does scream Vermont doesn’t it? Random alpacas and artesional sweaters.

But onto the antique store! It was also joyfully very eccentric in that Vermont sort of way as scattered between many of the antiques there was also a plentiful variety of homemade folk art of all ages, subject matter, and level of creepiness. You know like the sweet idyllic scene painted onto an enormous dried mushroom or conversely the equally enormous decapitated claw of a lobster dressed up to look like a pirate!

Did I forget to mention the taxidermy? There were so many bears! A number of impressive mounts and then a few that made you wonder if it was the taxidermist’s first day or if they should be looking for a day job. The mange-addled bear and the coyote with a pained and somehow constipated grin came to mind.

All this was cuddled up next to artifacts and art from I think every indigenous tribe in the US, not just the local ones, and because we love drama there was also a flint pistol and lots of Indian Wars-looking weaponry not far away.

This place had a little of everything and I do mean everything. We even found a battle nun figurine. I know you have questions but I don’t have any answers.

There was also a jar of dog tags, not military ones, the canine variety… perhaps a morbid memorial to dogs long since passed? We may never know. Or who would buy that?? Not to be outdone in the creepy department there was also a marionette horse that I would have brought home to make a still animation horror movie if only I had a studio or the space. The thing was absolute nightmare fuel, a horror of horrors.

But there was a lot of cutesy stuff too including someone’s entire collection of mice figurines and salt and pepper shakers. This is not to mention what hilariously looked like a progressively leaning take on Dick and Jane but with Jane replaced by Joe. Dick and Joe, all kittied up in fancy garb going for a little dance around the yard. It most certainly was not intended for this but you know… modern eyes see modern things….

All and all this place was a lot of fun. Probably would have been even more fun in summer when the ice cream parlor next door is open…

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Lindy’s Diner – Keene New Hampshire

You know whap happens when my usual travel companion has a week off? He gets kidnapped and dragged into the mountains! But first there was the matter of food. It’s rare I bring him back to mine and I wasn’t about to make the same mistake I made last time – eating breakfast at the place in town I knew was… not great.

We had planned to go to Vermont that morning anyway so why not stop just short of the border in Keene and get something delicious for breakfast? And if that didn’t work just give up and go to the candy or fudge shops just around the corner?

My companion picked a place and we parked and started walking towards it when he spotted Lindy’s, the cute little tin diner. I said I’d never heard anything bad about Lindy’s and it’s been there forever so we immediately made new plans. To Lindy’s!

It was a good choice. We ate there two mornings in a row, getting a good selection off their breakfast menu. The first morning I had strawberry stuffed waffles because I was having a sugar craving. It delivered on this! Waffles are generally supposed to taste like butter – because that’s basically all they are with just enough flour to keep a shape – but these 100% tasted like cake. Yellow cake to be exact. I was BUZZING. The next morning I behaved myself and had eggs and home fries with some rye toast. All simple but delicious traditional diner food. Couldn’t be happier. My companion was also happy with the hollandaise sauce, which to be fair he’s a bit fussy about. Twas sad to hear the other patrons saying this place was in the process of being sold, probably to be carted somewhere else. I adore tin diners but they never seem to last in the area.

This was a good choice to begin both our trips across state lines into Vermont.

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Trailside Treasures Antiques & Otherwise – Columbia Connecticut

After eating some mediocre hotdogs we felt a bit more energized and decided to drive further into Connecticut to check out one more antique store.

This place was cute! It wasn’t enormous like the last two but it seemed a little more warm and inviting. And the prices couldn’t be beat. Partially because there were multiple sales going on. I ended up buying a couple metal car banks for $10 each! (I usually see them for $25 or so but I’d never seen one of a circus carriage or an ooooold Mack truck before. Their uniqueness called out to me.)

This place did indeed have antiques of the usual varieties – you know like orange carnival glass I keep telling myself not to paw at until I have an actual house. Sooo orange and shiny! I know millenials have been blamed for killing everything down to paper napkins but come on… having some pretty China could be fun! Especially since I don’t have any wee goblins to break them.

There was also one creepy doll, not 100% sure why it was chain smoking but to each their own. A hand crafted chess set also sat in a quirky little room that had tuna can wallpaper. I love eccentric wallpaper. Not enough people take advantage of them.

ANYWAY. This place was great if you are looking for craft supplies. They were selling knitting needles for a few bucks a pair, all sizes, and quilting fabric was being sold by the pound. First time I’ve ever seen fabric sold by pound instead of yard but hey I’m all for it!

And the cashier was really sweet too. Almost gave me a 50% off discount instead of the 15% advertised. She figured it out a few seconds before I was going to correct her. My treasures were only ten bucks each to begin with!

I liked this place. It was sweet and clearly struggling. I’m not sure the vulture circling it or the mob of 50 or so crows hanging out in the street next to it were helping much but hey! You never know, in some cultures crows are good omens…

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Jerimiah’s Antiques & Shoppes – Putney Connecticut

After enjoying a few hours in the Antiques Marketplace we wandered back out onto the streets and got lost looking for a hot dog stand but before that we realized there’s another antique store right here! Clearly, we had to check it out. Especially with such a razzle dazzle name. But we were kind of a bit burnt out and hungry but when in Rome, or rather Putney CT….

We were greeted with another large store with rows upon rows of glass cases. Most of their contents were pretty normal – mostly bricabracs and whatnot fir the rich grandmother in all of us but then we came across a box of Jarts! Gawd, did they look terrifying. A convenient way to murder your little brother or sister while making it look like an accident. “We were just playing! I swear!”

Weird and very charismatic chairs were scattered about – furry chairs, chairs with weird art deco designs, chairs that could sit alone in the middle of the room and make anyone visiting blurt out, “BUT WHY?”

And then came the all too familiar trickle of racist bullshit including several different copies of Little Black Sambo proudly on display. This quickly devolved into a case and a half of Nazi bullshit. We sighed. I didn’t bother taking a photo. Honestly this sight just made me tired. More helmets, more random loot, more shiny swastikas. Some things should just stay in the past, dead and forgotten. If only.

We then took a trip into the basement which had some more bargain finds. Things started to get more delightfully bizarre from there starting with more creepy dolls including a decapitated ventriloquist dummy, his head sitting on his lap??? Probably by no small coincidence this is the same area of the shop I kept seeing a cat sized void of color darting about at our feet like it was keeping tabs on us. I never give attention to weird shadows and phantoms, though I see them fairly regularly. In a place like this they could be attached to any one of these artifacts, its a hazard of the trade. I made no note of its existence as I ambled onward.

Back upstairs again and I was greeted with a whole cabinet of fruit shaped kitchen ware, an absolutely darling dresser painted to look like the front of a Volkswagen bus, the head of a manniken all punked out with a Christmas light Mohawk, and of course who could forget the absolutely terrifying leather gorilla in attack position with glinting white teeth or the worst doctored nude I have ever seen? A black and white photo of a topless woman with tattoos randomly cut and pasted over the image, I hope in the days before photo shop was a thing because WOW that wasn’t fooling anyone.

This was a nice way to top off the adventure we already had next door. Sort of like a happy bonus!

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Antique Marketplace Putney Connecticut

It seems like every time I feel like we’ve seen it all something else pops up that’s amazing and weird and 100% worth the long drive. That’s what happened when we drove up to yet another antique store (waiting for the warm weather to open up some outside options.)

We’d been to so many antique stores but this one was settled in the center of an old mill city and was HUUUUGE and clearly not what this space was originally used for. It meandered for what seemed miles with weird nooks, corners, rooms, entire whole floors, and the antiques were absolutely bonkers. SO MUCH WEIRD.

We stopped by this salt and pepper shaker shaped like a monk and a nun and my companion asked, “Why does it look like a pod person whose soul has been sucked out?” I couldn’t hold back the nervous half-triggered laugh of some one whose watched and been scarred by The Dark Crystal.

The day had been full of our fun little games: How Racist is this? You Know What a ____ Looks Like Right? And of course, What the Fuck is That?! My companion has roped in a gaggle of D&Ders to enjoy these games with us, taking photos and sharing them to long distance giggles and bewilderment. Initially what started all this was the fact this place was full to the brim with nightmare fuel.

I have become accustomed to haunted dolls but even I was alarmed to find a set of toddler twins still in their perspective boxes, complete with a menacing grin, more than a little side eye and their own bundle of red balloons looking like twin baby Its. Stephen King would be proud.

The creepy dolls were endless. There were ancient dolls with cracked faces, doll heads in tea cups, and even a cabbage patch doll head – sold separately from its body! I never knew they were sometimes sold by the head.

But there was also a ton of terrifying masks and paper mache creations that’d put the fear of Piñata in you. It was also a day for chasmatic chairs – including a solid mahogany shitter. The label said “throne.” This was near a three foot tall anthropomorphic poodle holding a serving tray, a pancaked pheasant on a wall mount, a candle holder that was actually half a gold horse leaping out of the wall, and painting I could only describe as, “A conversation piece.” To which my companion retorted, “Yeah, if you want every conversation to start with ‘What the fuck is that?!'”

We were in this one mall for hours. I kinda wish I was a picker and knew what I was looking at… or had a house and some money to invest in some more conversation pieces. Someday I’ll have a home of my own, at the end of a dirt road, and half the town’s children will think I’m a witch. Their parents will tell them to stay away from my house after walking into it one day and realizing a huggable baby baphomet sitting above the coat rack was the most normal thing they saw there. I look forward to this. To being “eccentric.”

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Purgatory Chasm & Love Lock Bridge – Newport Rhode Island

Sometimes you just got to get out of the house, get some fresh air, and poke at something with a stick. Maybe a dead bird. Just kidding, this adventure didn’t involve any dead birds.

This was another adventure in nostalgia where my companion tried to remember somewhere from twenty plus years ago enjoyed in the haze of mispent youth. I’m more than happy to oblige because I was a VERY well behaved youth who was monitored and controlled more than a felon with an ankle bracelet and it’s nice to see what freedom must have been like back in the day.

This time around I was treated to Purgatory Chasm, not the more well known one in Massachusetts but the one no one’s heard of in Newport Rhode Island. It’s so obscure the parking lot is tiny and only good for a half an hour of parking. There was however a handicapped space… in case you wanted to take your wheelchair bound buddies to a heavily rooted hill and an oceanside cliff for no particular or heavily insured reason.

Purgatory Chasm itself is only a hop, skip, and clumsy trip away from the parking lot and it reminded me a lot of Thunder Hole up in Maine, just smaller and somewhat less thundery. It still made a pretty good whooshing locomotive sound when the waves came in. I can totally imagine my nervy Puritian ancestors pointing to the noise growling from the rocks and declaring it must be the devil. Curiously although Heaven was always above for these people Hell always seemed to be here on earth – you can tell because they named half the land here Purgatory something-or-other.

Beyond the chasm there was also a lovely little love lock bridge my companion wasn’t even aware of. Clearly others had as it was FULL of locks, some of which had hearts and names carved into them, most of which were rusted to high hell because unlike other more famous love lock bridges this one was likely constantly sprayed with saltwater.

A few weedy little trails led to a handful of observation points that gave a pretty view of the beach off to one side, a weird sea monster looking set of rocks in the water and lots of ocean. There was also a tiny tree stump that had a heart shaped center ring that made me believe it may have been a Giving Tree – loving its people even while they were cutting it down. The scenery was beautiful but also clearly a lover’s nest reminding me just a bit of the beach the main characters of Wristcutters: A Love Story woke up on. If you’ve seen that movie you’re probably screaming just a little bit, if you haven’t you should totally watch it. It’s way more wholesome than the title infers, I swear! It’s dark comedy at its finest.

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Jeffries Antique Mall

Alas, I have found another antique store I feel like I should have already known about. This one appeared from the outside to be a metal warehouse. On the inside it was aisle after aisle of antiques from dozens of different vendors. This reminded me a lot of my first antiquing adventures in Maine.

Most of the merchandise here was relatively new and nostalgic (and you have to know how damn old it makes me feel to pick up a VHS tape, a rotary phone, or cassette player and know not only are these things now considered antiques but kids these days HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE.) As an elder millennial I’m not immune to the odd Ninja Turtle or particularly weird beanie baby. And this is the sort of place one finds these things, guarded by a swarm of haunted dolls as is tradition.

I was also happy to find lots of vendors were selling affordable vinyl records, most of the classic rock of the 60’s/70’s/80’s variety. These weren’t pristine by any means, most the covers looked very well loved but this is these are the sort of bins you can start a collection of your own with or perhaps find a diamond in the rough. My companion gave a nervous laugh at the fact Bill Cosby’s stand up was still in one of them. Yep, funny thing he’s been everywhere since we learned what a massive twatwaffle he is. And judging by the prices people aren’t really buying it.

Unfortuneately the melting snow outside was staring a puddle in front of what used to be a garage sized door. My companion made sure to tell the staff who seemed less than thrilled with this discovery, though still thanked us for pointing it out.

I may be back to this place for some more rummaging. It’s large enough that there’s a good possibility of finding something interesting with every visit.

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Delaney Antiques [Clocks] – West Townsend Massachusetts

After going to the Hobart Antique Mall we realized that directly across from it there was another sign reading Antiques across the road. We decided to explore this further having no idea what it was. The sign out front seemed even older and more worn out than the Hobart Village Antiques but there was cars in the lot so we held on for the ride. The entrance was a little weird but we found it and then walked into one of the bizzarest places we’ve been yet. Suddenly we were surrounded on all sides by antique clocks, all ticking. At the risk of dating myself I felt like I was walking into a scene from Hook but unlike the kid in that movie I didn’t have a baseball bat and a bad influence instead I had an immediate panic attack. Ticking is one of my triggers that brings me right back to grade school when some teacher thought it was a great idea to teach children math through timed tests. So we all sat with our multiplication tables and and who got to sit next to the loudly ticking egg timer? You guessed it! Me! I never did learn my multiplication tables and to this day I find timed tests to be child torture. Recently I’ve gone back to learn my math with DuoLingo and was more than horrified to find part of its lessons are again, timed tests. No ticking but still as anxiety inducing.

I swallowed hard and walked in anyway knowing I was being neurotic, these are grandfather clocks, not Acme bombs, and no one’s asking me math questions. Just put on your big kid pants and deal with it.

This place was a two level post and beam barn filled in every corner with grandfather clocks against every wall and in the middle of the room? Tables with smaller mantle clocks. All in pristine condition, all ticking, all reading a different time! So now not only was I sweating hard from panic I was also struggling not to twitch from the chaos of none of them being set right. This is an autistic person’s nightmare, honestly, so much so I noticed I wasn’t taking any photos of individual clocks so I closed my eyes, breathed a moment, and allowed my instinct to drag me to the most interesting looking clock. It had an elaborate wood inlay pattern, the likes I’d never seen before. I took a moment to take a picture of that before walking up the stairs which was decorated with clock faces, so many clock faces.

By the time we made it to the second floor my companion was quietly talking. These clocks are neat but expensive he lamented. He looked at the price tag on one which was over a grand. I blinked, happy to be focusing on something other than the ticking, and said well yeah, the one you picked has a mahogany inlay. By now the shop keep had come up and started talking to us. Ask any questions, he welcomed. So my companion asked about Newport Rhode Island and apparently back in the day they had a few famous clock makers and he pointed out those clocks as we riffed about what an odd place colonial Newport was. One of these clocks was made of solid walnut, I nodded and said, “When we still had walnut trees” which seemed to delight the shop keep who confirmed the sentiment. Black walnut still exist in the United States but are near extinct due to diseases and pests that thrived in the pine forests we planted after cutting down every old forest hardwood tree that existed here. There are conservation efforts going on right now to grow more and the public can help. This is one of the reasons I want to own land – to be a custodian of some of these precious trees, grown from nuts acquired through these programs.

We also got to see a reproduction piece of furniture from the John Brown house that was the most expensive piece of American furniture to be sold at auction. It was indeed beautiful.

I asked what the oldest clock was and he showed us a grandfather clock built in 1610. It was English and spent most of its life in England and France. Strangely enough it was the one clock I took a singular photo of with the ornate wood inlays. I’d been drawn to it for a reason!

We thanked the owner for the history lesson and said we’d refer anyone looking for an antique clock here! Hell, if we ever end up with the old farm house of my dreams I’m not guaranteeing that won’t be us someday. You know if this blog ever goes viral and we end up with clock money!

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Hobart Village Mall Antiques – West Townsend Massachusetts

This week it was time to amble around a few places a little closer to home than usual. I had no idea this one even existed but it sounded promising, I mean when you put village and mall in the title it implies something of decent size. It closed at 5PM though so we went to this one first after waking from a stress-induced coma. This would be the perfect little outing to take our minds off of *vaguely gestures at everything.*

When we got there the sign was very beaten and battered, clearly well aged, and almost covered by a mud-spattered snowbank. Tis the season! The parking lot was confusing and seemed to go right past someone’s driveway. And the building? Just as decrepit looking as their sign. I muttered, “We’re about to be serial killed, aren’t we?” To which my companion tried to lighten the mood by pointing out we weren’t the only car there. THANK GOD.

I was expecting the worse. Really, like another Cookie’s. But low and behold as we walked in the change in scenery was stark! Inside the rooms were well lit, perfectly painted, and all sorts of well thought out displays. Lots of room for each object to really shine and mixed among them all were these “replica” furniture made from what I can only assume was local trees and branches. You know, perfect if you’re going for that rustic look.

I didn’t even look at the price tags on this place because everything looked so clean and proper I knew it’d be out of my budget. And the things we found were very unique! One was a cast iron horse from a child-size carousel made in the 1920’s. It had lost all its coloration over the years and looked just as desperate and wanting as the old cast iron pans you see everywhere. But if you were looking for carousels of better quality there was a whole room of them! We also found a gorgeous French bronze clock depicting a naked Promethius in chains, I guess being punished for that whole giving fire to humanity scandal, a series of French posters, a series of signed prints from artists I wasn’t familiar with, some old probably haunted portraits, the customary smattering of possessed dolls, and a Victrola with a wooden horn! I’ve seen lots of phonographs in my day, some with horns, but never wooden. MY GOODNESS.

We left without buying anything but hey, if you’re in the area and happen to be monied and love purchasing some very unique antiques this place is well worth a little lookie-loo.

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