Our Childhoods Are Vintage: Totally Rad Vintage Fest
- grws269
- Jan 25
- 9 min read
If you're of legal drinking age in America, or any age past your second decade, you, too, are of age to be sold at a vintage goods convention like the Totally Rad Vintage Fest in Monroeville, PA.
Feeling old yet? I'm sorry to say that this post might not help you feel any less your age. But I'll be happy to share with you some of the sweet nostalgia brought up by my first travel-class adventure. Sold here are your grandparent's scratchiest of sweaters, the best of your dad's 80's wardrobe, countless cryptic toys that you thought you saw in a dream or that haunted your kid nightmares, and all of your missed family heirlooms. They've been lost, donated, sold in estate sales, gifted to friends and relatives, stolen by fleeting crushes or spiteful exes. This has likely happened over and over again. Now, on January 12, strangers from across the country have collected it all to be exchanged once more at the Monroeville Convention and Events Center.
Two of these strangers are Bob and Christy, Totally Rad Vintage Fest vendors and owners of BeeFour Collectibles. One of their neighboring vendors recommended I speak to Bob based on his nearing 38 years in the sale of vintage goods. I was incredibly lucky to receive such a recommendation: he and his wife, Christy, were not only kind and experienced sellers, but part of a three-generation family of pickers.
"Mama was a junk picker and a flea marketer," Bob said. "She had a route. Three different stops- three different flea markets she would alternate weekends. Mom picked and sold the whole time I was growing up, and she was a caregiver."
Bob's story reminded me of my own: my father, too, would take me to a new Salvation Army almost every weekend I spent with him while we lived in Chicago, plus estate sales on Sundays. Other people's homes turned into gold mines. Our basement collected limited-edition video games and their obsolete consoles, action figures still in their packaging, and countless stuffed animals from near-forgotten television. I knew, sitting cross-legged in a red push-cart, which designers excited my dad. Lacoste, Polo Ralph Lauren, Timberland, Woolrich. The smell of pre-loved clothes lingers in my mind.
"Ultimately, we ended up having a store in Harmony, PA for 17 years," he continued. "She sat every day but Christmas and Easter. She would have me bring back stuff, and a lot of times, fortunately for her, she could buy it out of somebody's trunk. If they were short a gallon of paint to finish the living room, and they needed some money, they'd bring her a trunkful, and she could pick out of the trunk. That helped to make her day. A lot of people would come and would talk to her, tell her their problems, and she would somehow extrude about $10 from each person, on average. You know what I mean? Just for having the time to listen to what was up with them."
"How personal can I get?" Bob said. All while we spoke, customers and passers-by milled around the vendor, touching and picking up nicknacks, holding clothes up to their bodies, and occasionally flagging down Christy or Bob to inquire about a price.
"Christy and I met on a blind date," Bob said, to which Christy laughed. "She called me, as she was supposed to- I was on a tractor. Mom comes running out of the building, and she says, 'Bobby, get off the tractor, there's a sweet young thing on the phone for you.' And lo and behold, I said to Christy, 'How about Olive Garden, and how about a movie?' and she was all in," Bob said. "We're celebrating thirty years this year, incidentally."
Christy, also a seasoned vintage seller, runs the women's vintage section of their vendor.
"He keeps me busy," she says, laughing, referring to Bob. Similar to what he must have done in his mother's picking days, Bob brings home the women's vintage, while Christy sorts, cleans, and repairs it.
"Christy went to a show in Columbus with Noah, and she comes home and says, 'I can do this, but I don't want to compete with our son. I want to do women's vintage,'" Bob said.
"It's a lot more involved than men's. Oh, you've got skirts, and dresses, and accessories... I have way too much," Christy said, to which Bob followed up, "Sizes, designers, season... It's challenging. It's easier to vend T-shirts."
Diagonal to Bob and Christy's vendor is that of their son, Noah, one half of the third generation of pickers in his family. The other is Andreas, Noah's twin brother.
"We educated our children to the point where every other weekend, one would go along to sell with me," Bob said. "They communicate like champions. Our son Andreas pastors in Washington at the bible chapter... When I see parents coming in here with their children, I tell them they're doing them a good thing."
I think back to my childhood, much of which was spent doing what Bob and others would call 'picking' and 'flea-marketing,' neither terms I have before associated with myself. Sure, I watched back-to-back episodes of Flea Market Flip on HGTV with my grandma and American Pickers or Pawn Stars with my dad, but somehow, this world of haggling, bartering, and thoughtful exchange went on all around me without my realizing I was a part of it.
"Very, very, very few of the people we sell to will actually haggle. I don't know what that's all about. But our children will cut you off at the knees," Bob said, both he and Christy laughing. "I mean, they embarrass me."
"We enjoy what we do, and the people we meet, and after this much time, we've made so many connections. The phone rings a lot," Bob said. "This is our first Rad, we've never done one before. The opportunity came up, and we have so much."
"And [Noah and Andreas] don't want any of it!" Christy said, laughing. "We have to get rid of it now."
"They know where to get it themselves," Bob said. "Thrifting for profit is good... When Noah left the school with a bachelor's degree, he said, 'Dad, I have a burning question. I don't know what to do.' I said, 'Wait a minute, you're more educated than me! What do you mean you don't know what to do?' And he said, 'No, I have a serious question.... Dad, I don't know whether to pay for it now or wait for them to ask.' He was referring to his entire college education. They picked and sold their way through school. At least in Noah's case, pshhh, gone." Bob snapped his fingers. Nowadays, that kind of relief from school fees and debt is an accomplishment and a privilege.
"It's been good to our family. When we hear of somebody in need, or we end up cleaning out something that we don't have room to store, we find a suitable location to donate to. We oftentimes donate cleanup to inner-city aid, and to a place called Charitable Deeds in Knox, PA," Bob said.
Before I left their vendor, I asked Christy about a toy I had been eying that once again reminded me of my childhood: a baby Serta sheep. I told her about the two Serta sheep, one pastel pink and one classic, that my grandparents kept in a blue toy bin at their house for my cousins and me to play with. Although the baby would have gone for $5, Christy graciously offered it to me as a gift. I hope anyone reading this knows the great and simple love of strangers that Christy and Bob showed to me that day.
One of Bob and Christy's many connections made sales directly across from them: Roni, owner of Veronica VNTG, started her own vintage market in Sandusky, Ohio, which began in March of 2024. At their stall, she and two associates, Logan and Peyton, boasted a collection of vintage sweaters, tees, and jerseys from teams across the nation.
"[Logan's] first market was my first event that I put on. That's how we met- his sister messaged me, and she said, 'My brother loves vintage clothing, he likes to collect it- you should get ahold of him and he can be one of the vendors at your market,'" Roni said. "I'm really passionate about Sandusky, Ohio. It's a hidden gem along Lake Erie. People don't realize how fun this little town is, so I wanted to bring new faces, and people travel for vintage markets all the time. I see it just because I travel for them, too."
From Logan, I scored a sweet oversized tee for $10 that is in the wash as I'm writing this, otherwise I would include a picture! It's an all-black tee except for "Upper Michigan" in this tall, gorgeous white font with little pink and yellow wildflowers along the bottom of the text. I'll have to add a photo in later to show off how awesome it is. Thanks, Roni and Logan!
So, what makes Totally Rad Vintage Fest different from other vintage conventions? One of its great features is that it's not: it's classic in all the way it needs to be. It draws thoughtful, passionate people with great stories to tell, and although sellers here tend to know the value of their wares, there are prices to meet anyone's budget. Not to mention that many, like Bob, Christy, and Noah, are willing to haggle at least a little.
Rad Fest's arcade sported not only actual arcade games, but also chunky box computer monitors like the one at my grandma's, on which I would have played Chuzzle, Minesweeper, and Purble Place.
And I hope I'm not the only one who recognizes the once-ridiculously-popular physical toy meets early online game, Webkinz. They dominated much of my juvenile mind: when I wasn't playing with a miscellaneous pile of stuffed cats, dogs, lions, frogs, and birds, I could be found playing with the very same animals virtually. They ran the catwalk way before we had "Dress to Impress" on Roblox, and could chat in kid-friendly, pre-written dialogue with other online players well before I would be banned from National Geographic's Animal Jam for trying to sneakily type a cuss word. Ah, good times.
At Rad fest, vintage goods aren't just restored to their former glory. They're upcycled, redesigned, and used as an artistic medium. Elena, owner of 18th Street Vintage, and her husband Jesus, owner of Just One Vintage, specialize in both traditional vintage and custom reworked pieces.
"I started doing rework maybe seven or eight years ago," Elena said. "I was kind of just experimenting at that point, doing a little bit here and there. Then, in the past, like, two to three years, when we started doing the Fest, we noticed that people love them. So, we started doing more and more, and we started doing them together."
Another upcycler I met was Rayne, owner of I Survived Earth. Rayne specializes in printing unique designs onto vintage clothing. I was intrigued by her prints of the words "almond milk" particularly because I have two half-gallons of the stuff in my fridge at home.
"I have a fine art background... I studied printmaking, and it's one of those things that just came together. I didn't plan to be doing this, but life just throws things at you, and you roll with the punches," Rayne said. "I was working at a printmaking shop, and that was really the first time I had access to a studio since leaving school. I ended up just being in there a lot at night, printing stuff, and I just kind of started to sell the things I made, and at the same time, got a clear guidance to pursue it."
Alongside the myriad of remarkable vintage clothing vendors, there were plenty of remarkable attendees, too. The Rad Fest felt like the time and place to break out fully into one's personal style, eclipsing the limits of current trend for a look curated to individuality. One such customer, Chaos, was perusing a Lego figurine and vintage toy vendor with their friends.
"I like all the little figurines, and honestly, if you saw my apartment, it's very fitting. I have so many little trinkets and so many little things. And I like that this [vendor] literally covers everything. There's cartoons, anime, it's so inclusive of so many things," Chaos said. They scored a Chainsaw Man and a Tasmanian Devil figurine.
I met another attendee, Lucy, who wore her grandmother's vintage fur coat to the Fest. It was soft and well-kept, and I always appreciate the hand-me-down use of vintage furs and leather.
I was, overall, astounded by both the selection of vendors at Rad Fest and the true joy of old things that brings so many people together at festivals just like this. My takeaways from having visited are that I will absolutely be attending next year, and that if you've read this far, that you should, too! I've never met so many people so eager to tell their story, and my finds that day were far greater than the funky tees I bought. I'm thankful to all those that spoke to me. So much of this trip felt like getting to step back into memories, both my own and from others, all compiled onto racks and into dig-bins.
For more photos from the event, check out the gallery below. For additional information on where and when to find another Totally Rad Vintage Fest, you can follow this link.
See you next time,
Geneva
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