By Jessie Burchette
jburchette@salisburypost.com
Bobby Miller has helped thousands of people get a handle on their lives over the past 15 years.
At least, he’s helped them get a handle on their yards and gardens.
The 70-year-old Miller is the handle guy at the Webb Road Flea Market.
He sells replacement handles for hoes, axes, shovels, hammers and just about any other yard or garden tool that’s been forged or manufactured.
The retired career Navy aviation machinist has replaced hundreds ó make that thousands ó of handles.
He offers a low-cost assortment of handles.
And for $1 more, he’ll take the old stub of a handle out and put in the new one.
That can save a lot of bruises and scratches.
“Sometimes it’s harder to get the old handle out. You can hurt yourself,” Miller said. And sometimes he has to resort to the old standby ó burning it out.
Miller also sells “new” old tools ó ones with steel that will last.
“Right now, everything is made overseas. … The older stuff is the best. You got hoes that sell now cheaper than my handles,” Miller said. “They are not worth bringing home.”
To illustrate his point, he takes an axe coated in rust and cleans it with a grinder. “It’s 50 to 75 years old,” he said, going on to sharpen it.
In the fall and winter months, much of his business is in axes and axe handles.
Now, the demand for hoes and rakes has picked up dramatically. He figures the economic woes are causing more people to try gardening this year.
He’s got shovels, rakes and hoes ó the metal parts ó piled up in and around his workshop at his home off Faith Road.
Once in a while, he gets a real “find,” a railroad shovel or a shovel from the WPA (Works Progress Administration), the Great Depression-era federal program.
He does most of his work outside. His sheds are filled with handles and more tools.
Miller isn’t sure exactly how he ended up in the handle business.
It started out pretty much as a hobby.
He’s always had a fascination with old tools.
His collection includes a corn cutter used when corn was harvested and put in shocks.
He’s got an an assortment of axes and old hoes. He also collects Winchester axes, a very rare axe.
Growing up south of Faith on the same land where he now lives, Miller had four brothers and four sisters. His father ran a small grocery store, did saw milling and hauling.
He learned a lot a trades early.
Joining the Navy, he served in Vietnam. As an aviation machinist and flight engineer, he was involved in moving planes all over the world.
On a stop in Japan, he met Taeko, a native of Fukuoka, one of the smaller Japanese islands.
“She was 18. I was 19,” Miller said.
They got married two years later and launched on a lifetime that’s never been dull.
His first venture at Webb Road Flea Market was a gold-panning operation. It was a lot of fun, but didn’t draw the interest that handles do.
The Millers are admitted flea market fans.
One year, they took off on a cross-country flea market venture, working markets from Maine to California.
The tour ended with a visit to their son, Bobby Miller Jr., an ob-gyn in California.
These days, they stay closer to home, where their daughter, Tammy Bowers, lives next door.
And Taeko continues to spice things up, canning hot pickles and assorted other spicy vegetable combinations, which she sells at the flea market.
Contact Jessie Burchette at 704-797-4254.