Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Jim Buice

What’s in a name, especially when it comes to the Clemmons Farmers Market?

The first pop-up market kicked off the 2025 season last Saturday morning along with the annual Clemmons Community Day. And as a curious reporter, I just had to check out a few of the 50 or so vendors with names and/or stories that needed further review.

While walking through the long road lined with booths on both sides of the paved parking lot beside the large field where the CCD was going on next door at the Jerry Long Family YMCA, there was plenty to explore.

First, there was the Krazy Keychain Lady set up right beside the Crazy Earring Lady. Surely, this couldn’t be a coincidence, right?

It wasn’t. As it turns out, they met previously at a craft fair — one from Long Island, N.Y. and the other from Lewisville — and they became fast friends.

Charlene Caccavale, who speaks with an accent that implies she’s not from around here, said that she was “making keychains like krazy” while her local counterpart, Lewisville’s Debbie Triplett, argued she was crazier cranking out earrings.

“It’s just fun — a labor of love,” Triplett said.

What a pair!

Then there was AnnaBanana. I didn’t see any bananas, but found out from her mother, Erica Jordan, a longtime Clemmons resident who was manning the booth, that it was just a rhyme. Daughter Anna enjoys bringing a unique style to clay jewelry while her father, Jay, does leather bracelets.

Up the way was Out From Da Woods, which features fresh microgreens. That’s where the name comes from, along with edible mushrooms and Joshua’s last name of Woods … and where his offerings come from. His goal is to provide sustainable harvesting methods that are good for the customer and the environment.

There is such an amazing mix of unique and popular items on display, and I need to go back soon to check out other names such as Bacon Beach Pottery, Bear Dog’s Bakery, Homegrown Bubbles, Jazzy Knots, Perfectly Imperfect, Wirehaired Booch and A Grain Apart, which creates a new type of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean street food — just to name some of them.

Luckily, the market picks back up May 10 and runs through September, so there will be many more opportunities to meet the vendors and their goods.

• • •

Some interesting leftovers on a couple of stories from last week’s “Focus on the Future” special section in the Courier:

More from Mike Combest, the Clemmons council member and retired U.S. Army brigadier general who has lived pretty much all over the world but says there’s no better place to live than the village, on running marathons… and not your typical 26-mile long runs.

On the Bataan Memorial Death March in White Sands, New Mexico, carrying a 40-pound rucksack through the Organ and San Andres mountains just a little more than a month ago: “I have run three of these to date. My best time was 7 hours and 12 minutes, and everything went perfectly. My longest time was 10 hours and 56 minutes. I broke a strap on my pack so had to stop and unpack and repack the load mid-race. Then I stepped in a hole, twisted a back muscle and had to stop and repack the load again to shift weight away from the strain. Ironically, muscling through the bad race now seems more rewarding than those where everything went as planned.”

On his two favorites: “At the risk of sounding like a paid advertiser, there are two runs that everyone who plods or runs should put at the top of their bucket list. The first is the Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset Marathon/Ultra. It’s impossible to overhype this race and the overall experience.

“The second is what is colloquially called ‘The Solstice Runs’ in Alaska. It’s two races that are both run on the longest day of the year … June 21(ish)  in Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska. As the name implies, the objective is to finish both runs on the same day, so a runner has to finish before midnight.

”First, you run the Anchorage marathon in the morning. It’s an awesome course. They actually have bear watchers posted along the course, and runners have to always be ready to take alternate routes. It’s not uncommon to be running along and have a posted volunteer say ‘Bear on the Course,’ and you’ll be directed to take a detour.

“Second, after finishing the Anchorage marathon, you drive 380 miles north to Fairbanks to run the ‘Midnight Sun Run’ 10k, which starts at 10 p.m. 

“Part of the greatness of this two-race Summer Solstice event is the trip from Anchorage to Fairbanks. Some folks fly (the richer folks), but most drive.”

So what about any “regular” marathons?

“Yes, I am still doing those … generally takes about five-plus hours. I have done 22 regular marathons so far and seven ultras (50 Ks/30 miles and over).

Sounds kind of boring compared to the others…

• • •

And this from P.J. Stringer, the sergeant and leader of Lewisville’s community policing program, regarding the friendly rivalry with neighboring Clemmons, where he previously served multiple times before coming to Lewisville in in 2018: 

“Listen, Lewisville has a snack cabinet,” he joked on his reasoning to move next door.

“I came over here as a corporal, but the town then made my position a sergeant’s position. You see deputies come and go. We always try to steal from Clemmons,” he said with a laugh, adding that Clemmons has 16 members of its force compared to six for Lewisville.

“We’re in a constant search to get the right people. Me and Jody Chatman (who’s in charge in Clemmons) have got a pact. We have come to the conclusion instead of stealing from each other, we just try to recruit them to community policing so we can share them between the townships. So we say, ‘let’s not fight against each other, let’s just get them.’”