(upbeat sounds) - Hey, what's up Akronites!

Welcome once again to Around Akron With Blue Green.

And wow, do we have an amazing show ahead of us today.

I'm gonna meet up with curated storefront and learn all about Clayton G. Bailey's World of Wonders.

I'm gonna head down to the valley and meet up with Heritage Farms and learn all about Christmas trees and much more.

I'm gonna head over Tallmadge and learn all about a household name here in Akron, Abbey Ann's.

Now to kick this show off today, I'm gonna meet up with a food cart vendor who started off with one hot dog cart, now he's got three, two restaurants and a food truck.

Let's go see what Stray Dog is all about.

(upbeat music) - Cooking was never my intended destination in life, it just occurred.

I learned how to cook from my mother, and cooking and gardening and all that stuff I grew up with, but it was not my intended career path.

(upbeat music) The Stray Dog Carts was the first thing, that's where we got our name.

It was just me and a little hot dog cart that wandered around, didn't have a home base selling hot dogs.

And so the stray dog name reflected that, that first personality of how we did business.

Grew from there, so one cart became three, there's been more and less over the years depending on the season and the need, but the carts you'll see at events at Downtown, at Lock 3, at fairs and festivals they do a pretty diverse group of activities.

They still are really the heart of what we do, they're our primary advertising vehicle.

It's usually the first thing people see of the Stray Dog is a cart somewhere.

(upbeat music) - He started the Stray Dog Cart hot dog cart and I jumped onboard immediately because he's a great person to work for, and he just kind of lets you just grow, and your ideas are important, and it was really nice to work in that kind of environment.

And so I've stuck with him all the years through.

And sometimes full-time, sometimes part-time, but I'm always there in the backgrounds, and now I'm full-time plus.

(laughs) (upbeat music) He started the hot dog cart and wanted to make things more interesting, and I said, make mustard, and so he did.

(laughs) And I can't say that I've ever made a mustard recipe, but I've helped tweak them a little bit here and there, I'm the official taste tester to make sure everything is right.

And I'm always amazed at how he creates things.

It's always so simple, and just using the most simple and fresh ingredients and everybody just loves the condiments.

And I don't know how he does it, but I'm happy to add my opinion along the way.

- We do other condiments as well, we do 10, 11, 12 flavors of mustard, some of those are seasonal.

That's why the number fluctuates a little bit.

So in the winter time we have a cranberry mustard and we have a honey mustard, we have a couple of hot mustards.

We also are the Akron Pickle, so we manufacture pickles and relishes and chowchow and some crossover products that are co-brand of the Stray Dog and the Akron Pickle.

(upbeat music) Two Downtown Akron cafes, both of them are on main streets.

One is at 75 South Main Street attached to the main library on the northern end of Downtown, and on the Southern end of Downtown we're the Cafe 388 inside the AES building, which is the home of the Akron Beacon Journal and the greater Akron Chamber of Commerce, we're here on the second floor, the main lobby area.

Our cafes are way more than just hot dogs these days.

We started with hot dogs and it's still part of our DNA, we still serve a lot of gourmet hot dogs and our Mac and Cheese Dog or our Pickle Dog or lots of those things are still good sellers.

And we sell Beef Dog and Turkey Dog and the Veggie Dog and we're pretty strong in the vegetarian game, but we also serve a slew of sandwiches and salads and soups and chilies and flatbreads and gyros and all sorts of things come and go off our menu.

We're here to really meet the needs of Downtown people and what they wanna eat for lunch, and sometimes it was more than a hot dog, but sometimes it still is a really good hot dog.

We also do catering and special events and we cater weddings and festivals and all sorts of things, anything to do with food on the go, that's us.

- We're really good at small events, and making sure that the event is, like our part of your event is perfect as possible and their vision is through our planning, and we really like making people's events wonderful.

We genuinely do, like without thinking of what we can get out of it, we genuinely wanna make our customers happy.

(upbeat music) - Somebody gave me this advice long ago, the advice is start small and do a really good job at it.

And once you accomplish that small thing, then the next stages will come to your naturally.

(upbeat music) - Next up, we're headed down to the valley to Heritage Farms to learn all about their Christmas trees, but did you know they have camping in the valley?

Let's go see what Heritage Farms is all about.

- This is a fifth generation farm.

Each generation has adapted what the farm does, what it produces, what it grows, what it sells to work with the economic environment at the time.

Lawson Waterman was the first person who owned the farm, and he and his wife were here.

They built canal boats, he owned one of the most prominent canal boat building operations in the entire Ohio & Erie Canal, and that was just down over the hill to the river.

They operated quarries.

Peninsula Sandstone is a high grain dense sandstone.

We have receipts in our attic that sandstone millstones were being sent to Paris.

The next generation was Charlie Bishop, Charlie was a nephew.

George Waterman, the Waterman's son was killed during the civil war, and so there was no next direct family.

Charlie Bishop came, Lawson Waterman was here for maybe 46 years, Charlie 42, and then it was Carol's grandfather, Fred Bishop.

He wasn't all that active, but he was here.

And then her father, Robert Bishop, Robert was here for 40 some odd years.

Intriguingly Carol and I've now been here as owners for 45 years.

My father-in-law Robert was the one who started Christmas trees when he began to realize that commodity crops, traditional commodity crops, the land simply wasn't suited for that.

And in order to make a living, he had to go to something that was much more of a retail crop.

So he started Christmas trees in the late 50s.

We picked the business up in the early 80s and we've made massive changes to how the business is done.

Bob Bishop lived until, what was it, 2004, I think.

And he used to sit back and grin because he loved what we were doing.

It was a true pleasure to work with him.

(somber music) Lawson Waterman originally purchased in parcels as he went along, I think the number is 260 or 265 acres.

We own still 115 of those original purchases.

In the 70s with the onset of the National Park, 140 acres that we owned were condemned as part of the building of the park process.

At that time that's where all of the Christmas tree operation was, so all of the fields that Bob had been cultivating went to the park.

Carol and I started over again with what open land we had here, we cleared all this land and started over with new seedlings.

So everything we have here is what she and I built when we started to take over the business.

Although we've had years where we've lost everything and seedlings, and the biggest mortality is with your seedlings.

We start with the seedling, it's about this tall.

When we get at that seedling, it's already four-years-old.

We put it in the ground.

If it's a pine, we nurture it for another eight to nine years; if it's a spruce, we nurture it for another 12 to 13 years.

(upbeat music) There are three activities in the summertime.

One are the flea markets, we have six of them in the summer, we host up to 70 vendors that are spread around on the site all over the place.

We have food, we have music, people are selling just about anything you can imagine.

The flea market is as much of an artisanal market as it is a flea market.

People who come here have a lot invested in what they're selling.

Another thing we do here is Fairy Day.

Fairy Days is gonna be in July this year, it's two days, and it's a fantasy.

We pretend that we've turned into a fairy garden and we try to decorate and arrange things, so that the kids can come and be in fairyland.

The last thing we do here in the summertime is camping.

We are a licensed campground, and if you wanted to host camping on your property, you need to get licensed by the state.

It's a significant process.

The licensed campground, we have 15 camp sites.

Our camp sites here, three are shelters, two are A-frames, and that leaves me what, 10 more camp sites.

You get to come out in the middle of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, camp in a gorgeous piece of property.

We have firewood available for you, picnic table fire rings, safely put your tents.

And we have amenities for, sanitary amenities or Porta Johns, but it's primitive camping.

We are the only campground within the park and we're within the park, I mean, we're surrounded 100%.

You can't be anymore in the middle of the park than right here physically.

(laughs) The park boundary is that line of trees over there.

That's the property line.

(upbeat music) We're now getting into third generation of our customer base.

And we have people that come out and tell us, my dad used to bring me out here when I was five-years-old.

And I just remember how excited we were and what we did and going out and cutting the tree down and bringing it up and setting it up, and that whole process.

And she said that has been so much a part of my life for 45 years, and now I'm bringing my granddaughter up.

Just (laughs) wow, okay.

(laughs) You can't be made to feel much better than when you get that kind of feedback from your customer base.

It's astonishing.

That's, yeah, we're business people.

We won't make any bones about it, we're pretty successful business people, but we get to do things that make people happy, and that's a lot of fun.

- Next up, some say Bigfoot is real, and some say Clayton G. Bailey here at the World of Wonders can prove that to you.

Let's go see what Clayton G. Baileys World of Wonders presented by Curated Storefront is all about.

(scary sounds) - For millennia mankind has sought evidence of a race of large hominid creatures that have walked the earth, but until now we haven't had proof.

Thanks to Dr. George Gladstone and his discovery of Kaolithic science and the World of Wonders Museum, we now have that proof.

(thrilling music) Kaolithic science is a very rigorous field, and one of the reasons why it's so rigorous is that it isn't only about the study of the science, there is also an awareness and even sort of an art to it.

So my primary training was actually as a practitioner of ceramic arts, but it was only after I met Dr. George Gladstone that I received advanced training in the Kaolithic sciences.

Dr. Gladstone headed up my committee and oversaw my training to really make sure that I could thoroughly vet all of the archives that are and the artifacts that are in the collection of Kaolithic curiosities.

(curious music) It's a little bit hard to say how I met Dr. Gladstone for the first time.

I was friendly with Clayton Bailey, an amazing artist, and Clayton really kind of, I don't know opened up his heart and he shared his amazing art with me.

And he'd always spoken about Dr. Gladstone, but Dr. Gladstone is a very private man, he doesn't socialize in the same way as other people, he is either in the laboratory or in his study or he is often in the fields, he is often working in far-flung locations around the United States and really about around the world discovering new artifacts.

(curious music) My name is Garth Johnson, and when I'm not the curator of Kaolithic curiosities at the World of Wonders Museum, I am the Paul Phillips and Sharon Sullivan Curator of Ceramics at the Everson Museum Of Art in Syracuse, New York.

And I have to say that Clayton Bailey as a curator is maybe my greatest hero.

So to see the World of Wonders come together in a new location in Akron, Ohio, is really important to me and really warms my heart.

This institution is not only one of the most valuable institutions when it comes to ceramics, but Clayton Bailey had a knack for conceptual art and performance art although he would I think hate for me to call it that, and he was really adept at using the language of the museum and using conceptual ideas to underpin everything that he created as an artist.

So whether it was putting together robots in his robot shop, or working on ceramics or doing demonstrations for the public, these are all things that he took very, very seriously.

Clayton Bailey never did anything by half measures.

(upbeat music) In the mid 1970s, Clayton Bailey opened the first museum in Crockett, California.

And it was actually in a location where he and his family had lived when they first moved to Crockett, the Dairyville Cafe.

So this was a museum that highlighted some of Dr. George Gladstone's Kaolithic discoveries, but Clayton Bailey needed a way to grab passers by and bring public into the museum.

So I think he had already started tinkering with the idea of creating robots, but the very first major robot project that Clayton Bailey created was a robot named ON/OFF.

So ON/OFF, I'll tell you a secret, sometimes Clayton could squeeze into it, but often his son Kurt was inside of the robot, and it was ON/OFF's job to bring people from the community into the gallery.

And ON/OFF was animated with all sorts of amazing lights, and ON/OFF became such a popular attraction that Clayton Bailey really launched a whole second career as a creator of robots.

And for many people he's known primarily for his robots instead of his ceramics.

Clayton Bailey's pieces don't only tell the story of Clayton Bailey's creative decisions, but they really tell the story of the history of America and the history of who we are as a people.

I think Clayton Bailey's invention of robots and all of the things that you see in the World of Wonders Museum, he really reflects an American spirit, and he is a truly American archetype.

(upbeat music) - Now to wrap this show up today, we're gonna head over to Tallmadge to Abbey Ann's.

That's right, you know what Abbey Ann's is.

It was one of the first thrift stores here in Akron.

You can see what Abbey Ann's is all about.

(upbeat music) - I remember just passing by here and seeing a bunch of junk in the window.

My parents would never stop in there, (laughs) but eventually I used to come in here.

When I graduated high school I'd shop around here because I'm a junker, and I started out at the flea market, so I hit the thrift belt pretty much.

Abbey Ann's, Goodwill, Salvation Army, all the way around Akron pretty much, Akron, Munroe Falls, Tallmadge, just shopping.

I mean, right out of high school, I started selling at the flea market before I could even drive really.

(laughs) Before I had my license, my dad used to drop me off down there with a bunch of stuff.

I used to sell military surplus, and I'd go down to Columbus and get skids of it, then I started out at the flea market, and yeah, eventually talked to these guys in here and found a job, just consigning, I'd bring stuff in to sell.

And so I ended up working here and I pretty much ran his company for him while he was in Florida.

And then, (laughs) eventually one day I got tired of just working here, (laughs) and I, yeah, I kinda, he pretty much talked me into buying it.

(upbeat music) It's, I mean, it's been under new ownership, since 2013 I've owned it.

And yeah, I mean, it's not like we're more picky, but we're just a lot more spry (laughs) than the previous owners.

In the 80s when they started out, I mean they were able to even sell new stuff, the economy was a lot better, especially with furniture, there wasn't a lot of competition, they had stuff that nobody else had, they were in the paper quite a few times for just having unique stuff.

We're not as picky as some of the consignment shops where they only want, they only want to sell pristine stuff.

We're not, we're catering to a certain market base that just needs something they can use.

They don't need it to... All they need is the function of it.

Cosmetics are, we don't stick our nose up if it's got a couple of scratches on it.

(upbeat music) Mary started out in the falls, I think it was '83.

She was like in her 40s when she started it, she worked for Ohio Bell, I think she had a drive-through.

Yeah, she did quite a few jobs before she started it, but ultimately she started out going to garage sales and buying the stuff and then setting it up in her yard, (laughs) and turn around for a profit, and that's how she started really.

She had the store on State Road for only like two months before it burned down, there was a big fire, and a few years later she relocated here.

The previous owners of this building, which it was Circle Furniture at the time, they approached her, probably seeing the article in the paper and approached her.

And yeah, I mean, within two years she was in here, and that's pretty much where she was ever since.

And, yeah, there used to be a La-Z-Boy furniture store, then it was Circle Furniture, and we're kind of following the furniture, the furniture theme, but we've sold stuff that was sold at Circle Furniture here.

I found tags, I found tags on La-Z-Boys or something, it says Circle Furniture, 51 West Avenue.

So we're keeping the furniture trend going.

I mean the history of this location here.

I mean that house that's attached to the building, it's one of the oldest houses in Tallmadge, is from 1830.

And it's a historical house, it's owned by a Dr. Philo Wright in the Wright Road right here, and it's the Wrights.

(upbeat music) The stuff finds us.

(laughs) But I mean, Mary ran a good a business.

And I mean, just word of mouth, I mean, we've helped out a lot of people, if they're cleaning out an estate and they need it out of there and they're throwing their hands up in the air, and then we come through and accommodate them, and then they're telling somebody who ask them, I got a bunch of stuff to get rid of, and they go, oh, well, Abbey Ann's cleaned me, got me fixed up, and it's all word of mouth, I don't do any advertising.

It's just the establishment, I mean, we got Google, I guess, is how they find us, they call.

I guess they could go on our website, we have some info on there, but yeah, I mean, it's kind of a, yeah, it's kind of a household name around Akron.

So, yeah, you don't have to try too hard.

I mean, I have to try harder to, it's more work just to turn everybody down.

I can only hold so much.

- Thank you once again for watching this episode of Around Akron with Blue Green.

Now if you have any questions, comments or maybe just want to drop me an email, you can reach me at www.AroundAkronWithBlueGreen or you can catch me on social media.

Thank you.

And have an amazing day.

Abbey Ann's, every-birdie has heard of Abbey Ann.

(indistinct) (man laughs) Every-birdie.

- [Man] Every-birdie kind of heard.

- Every-birdie, a new word.

(laughs) (upbeat music)