Every year, St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Bremond, Texas, holds a bazaar complete with drawings, booths, barbecue, and a whoppin’ big auction. And every year, you’ll find us there. This year, BFF and Sweet Sarah went with us. So much fun sharing this annual tradition with good friends! (I wish I could get used to my camera well enough to take pics of them, but just about everything comes out blurry, so I just stopped trying.)

Every year’s the same: En route from the parking lot to the auditorium, we greet whoever is there to greet–always folks related to MSB in one way or another–then we join the long line for some of the best barbecued brisket and the best sausage in all of Robertson county. After getting a plate loaded with bbq, beans, potato salad, cole slaw, and wonderful desserts made by the good women of town (and, of course, a Styrofoam glass of sweet tea!), we dine to the rollickin’ music of a polka band. I love to dance, so keeping my feet still with such a great beat reverberating through the room is nigh unto impossible. I have to admit, I did do a little solo waltz step on the way to our table.

Next up–after talking to many more family members (this is Yezak country, doncha know)–we check out the auction items, and MSB gets his bidding number. I stopped bidding a long time ago. They see me coming and keep bidding me higher and higher. For some reason, they bow to Billy, but not me. They won’t rest until I’m in the hundreds and have to give up before I break my account. The only satisfaction I get out of it is knowing they were in the hundreds too when they made me quit.

They have everything there. Homemade and home-canned goods, toys, furniture, motor oil (yes, you read that right), wine made from Muscadine and wild grapes. MSB almost always buys the canned goods, paying far more than we would if we just got the same thing in Kroger. But it’s fun, and it keeps us in good standing with the community that we’ll be moving to when he retires, and besides–we know and love most of the folks who did the canning.

But not everything we buy is edible. You may remember the jewelry box MSB bought me in 2011. It was handmade by a prisoner in Angola. Loved it then, still love it.

This year, my heart went to something I kept calling a bottle, because I could see it only well enough to know I wanted it.

When they brought it out so we could see it better, I really wanted it, even though I still didn’t know what it was.

Well, $40 later, we were the proud owners of a “beer growler,” and we got it for $4.99 less than the sticker price at Texas Slav & German Warehouse in Bremond (they donated it to the auction). Aside from the heavy brown glass, it has a ceramic top and an ornate silver handle.

I had to look up what a growler was because I didn’t have a clue. It’s not used to make beer, but to carry it home from the beer barrel at the local pub–the 18th Century six-pack, so to speak. (They date back to the 18th Century, but the term “growler” didn’t show up until the 19th Century. It was a slang term, describing the “growling” sound the brew’s carbonation made when leaking from the top.) Since beer wasn’t sold on Sundays, folks would go get their “fix” on Saturday night.

This one isn’t an antique, but I love it anyway. It would carry maybe a liter of Coke, or it could (and no doubt will) just sit on a shelf and look pretty. I doubt it’ll ever be used to bring beer home.

We had a wonderful day with friends and family, and I was one tuckered female when we finally got home. So tired, I slept late, hence the late post. I’m behind on everything, but that’s a typical Monday for ya!