As someone fascinated with people who obsessively collect, the Belhaven Memorial Museum sounds like it’s right up my hoarder alley. Located in a historic town hall, this giant antique store…ahem, I mean museum…displays over 40,000 objects that once belonged to one woman, Miss Eva Blount Way. (what a pleasant-looking lady, don’t ya think?) From the time she was a child growing up in the late 19th century to her death at the ripe old age of 93, Eva avidly collected unique things, including about 30,000 buttons. She also acquired Christmas memorabilia, Civil War and World War artifacts, old coins, antique x-ray machines, vintage clothes, toys, fine china, farming equipment and natural history specimens. Amongst all the crap, visitors can see a house made of match sticks, a wreath made of human hair, jars of animal feathers and petrified bones as well as Miss Eva’s collection of canning jars, including fish, chicken fat, ears of corn, spinach, and slop of undetermined origin. Eva’s museum gives me hope for my long-time friend who has at least fifty of everything, and not just your normal crap, but some very weird stuff. Even though I’m not sure her hundreds of different flavored sparkly lip glosses will go over too well sitting in display cases.
I leave you with one of Miss Eva’s favorite recipes, ‘The Perfection Salad’, or what I like to call ‘This Shit Ain’t Perfect, I’ll Be Going To The Nearest Drive-Thru’:
1 pkg. gelatin ½ tsp. salt
1 c. cold water 1 pt. boiling water
½ c. vinegar 1 c. chopped cabbage
½ c. sugar 2 c. chopped celery
Juice of one lemon 1 c. pimento
Cover gelatin with cold water; then add boiling water; set aside to cool. Then add sugar, vinegar, and lemon juice; add chopped ingredients. Set on ice to congeal; serve on lettuce with mayonnaise.
