Flea Markets

The concrete underfoot is already hot, and it's not yet 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning. That the day is shaping up to be a scorcher doesn't faze dozens of people waiting to get into Veterans Stadium in Long Beach for the monthly flea market. Mostly hard-core shoppers, they slathered on sunscreen before they left home and packed bottled water along with their cash. Before the day is over, they will all walk away with something--treasure, trash or just a good time.

A man who paid $4 for an old painting found that it concealed a copy of the Declaration of Independence that was printed on July 4, 1776, and may be worth $1 million, an auction house disclosed Tuesday. "Here was the most important single printed page in the world, in the most spectacularly beautiful condition," said David Redden, vice president of Sotheby's, who authenticated the document.

The first pairs of Rockport shoes that Karta Khalsa stocked in the middle 1970s went unsold for weeks. Running shoes were the rage back then, not some clunky kind that no one had ever heard of. "People thought it was a salad dressing," Khalsa recalled. But a pair of Rockports finally sold, then another. The thick soles and traditional, stylish looks made it a favorite among yuppies with weak knees and thicker middles who had hung up their running shoes.

Claudia Strasser can re-create the Old World charm of a Paris apartment almost anywhere, even in Orange County with its master-planned communities and tract houses. The New Jersey author of a new book on decorating called "The Paris Apartment" (Regan Books, $25) proved it recently at a visit to Rizzoli Bookstore in South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa.

Her fingers ran over the smooth red buttons with flecks of gold and the wavy sea-green buttons and the black buttons with ridges that made them look like miniature fans. Yoshini Kondo admired them all -- buttons sewn in lots of 12 on yellowing cards, buttons in every color and size, buttons in Bakelite, casein, ceramic, shell, wood, even silk thread. But did she need old buttons in her life?

He hurtles toward you, unleashing a stampede of verbs and nouns. He is talking product, talking art. "The art of regular people!" he booms, finger jabbing alarmingly eyeward. His face squinches into a raisin and reinflates as he ascends the onramp of rant. This is his favorite subject, and by golly, you're going to listen. He's talking America--rocket-shaped vacuum cleaners and Skippy peanut butter and go-carts and Farrah Fawcett-Majors throw pillows and boxes upon boxes of Tide.

For four months, Rina Ito lusted after a black, bamboo-handled Gucci bag. But the $820 status symbol was way out of reach for a 20-year-old college student working part time at a bar. So Ito was ecstatic when she found the handbag in near-perfect condition at a Tokyo pawn shop. At a mere $484, it was a steal. In the high-rolling 1980s, when Japan became a top consumer of luxury brand names, buying somebody's old purse at a pawn shop was not just impossible, but unthinkable.

Things can't make you happy, they say. But at 5:30 on a Sunday morning, traversing the freeways, at least 2,000 people believe otherwise. We are the early birds, on our way to the Rose Bowl flea market, to celebrate its 400th weekend since opening in 1969. Two thousand of us will arrive between 6 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. for the early bird special. We will pay $15 for the first crack at the collectibles and other merchandise.

After 15 years as a TV development executive, Sasha Emerson decided to change channels. Within weeks of tossing her call sheet and headset, she opened a modern-meets-vintage furniture store, landed her first project decorating a Spanish villa in Los Feliz and began the process of redecorating her life.

The City Council has imposed a 45-day ban on the establishment of indoor swap meets or flea markets while the city staff draws up new regulations. The council acted after the staff reported that the opening of an indoor swap meet on Arrow Highway in an unincorporated area of Covina had triggered numerous inquiries about Azusa's swap-meet regulations.