Sue McCoo has spent 34 years as a business owner on Main Street, first with Capitol Craftsmen before adding the Viking House to the mix two years ago. And outside of two days, she has been a mainstay for every Market Days during the three-plus decades. She has been part of the Market Days committee and served on the Intown Concord board, and on Saturday, McCoo will mark her 100th day of involvement with Concord’s annual street fair. Pretty cool, right? So we caught up with McCoo last week and asked her a bunch of questions, mostly having to do with Market Days. This is the Market Days issue, after all.
What’s your favorite thing about Market Days?
People are having a great time, that really is fun. No one’s in a hurry so people are just wondering around, they’re bumping into people they haven’t seen in a long time, in a weird way it’s kind of old fashioned. People will be standing there chit chatting with somebody, and someone will walk up and say ‘Mary Jane I haven’t seen you in 20 years, what have you been doing?’ . . . And that happens all the time. If you’re standing downtown and you’re watching you’ll see people go ‘oh hi, how are you?’ Its just got this old fashioned connection.
What’s your favorite specific memory or moment from Market Days?
The most memorable was getting a call in the middle of the night about the wind shear a couple of years ago. We were down here at two in the morning, pulling tents away from buildings, trying to figure out who belonged to what stuff and kind of put it back where you thought their booth was, so that was interesting. But probably more like 15 years ago, there was a thunderstorm that came in the afternoon, early evening and there was plywood floating down the street about eight feet off the ground all the way down, and we’re talking huge pieces of thick plywood. You were waiting for the wicked witch to come, it was amazing.
How has Market Days changed over the years?
Oh, years ago it was a bargain basement clearance type of sale. At the time, there was a shop in town and she used to order junk just to sell at Market Days. This was 35 years ago, and people still came down ‘cause there were good bargains cause it was old fashioned bargain days. The bad name for it was old fashioned junk days and that didn’t go over real well with anybody. And then at least 10 years ago, they decided to make it a festival that just happened to have things for sale and that’s when it really changed.
If you could add one thing to Market Days what would it be?
Consistently 75 degrees and sunny with a breeze ‘cause usually there’s one day where it’s rainy, really windy or 100, but in June we probably won’t get any 100 degree days.
What’s the one thing you think people should admire about the ongoing Main Street renovations?
Well, if you haven’t seen it you need to ‘cause it really looks great. . . The city team that put it together really need to be congratulated. They really did a great job.
What do you feel sets Market Days apart from other street fair type events?
Every year there are some things that continue, but every year there’s something different. There’s different entertainment every year, they’ve added the family fun stuff for the little kids. This year I’d imagine we’ll have politicians since it’s getting ready to be an election year, so we might have a presidential candidate or two. . . So every year it’s just a little bit different. Just when you think you know what’s going to happen, the next year it’s different.
Is it hard to get any work done with so much fun happening right outside your front door?
When it’s in July it’s usually a little quiet in the middle of the afternoon. The late lunch crowd disappears and people haven’t gotten out of work, so usually you can wonder around at that time. Everybody takes a long break, goes for a walk to go up and see what everybody else has got. The only problem when you’re working is you miss some of the entertainment.
Do you ever get some spur of the moment engagement ring purchases during the festivities?
The thing that happens is that a couple will come in and wonder through and sometimes the guy has already been there and says ‘I’m kind of thinking about these things can you get her finger sized? Can you figure out what she likes?’ So they’re sort of looking, but he’s totally pretending like he’s not interested, but she’s going ‘honey look at this.’ Then they leave and a couple days later he’ll call or stop by and asks ‘which one did she like best?’ Market Days is a perfect time for that.
We saw you have a nursing background, has it ever been needed at one of the stores? Anything from paper cuts to fainting spells caused by diamond sizes?
Well at Market Days, before they had the tents, there were several people we had to sit down and get water into them ‘cause they were overheated. I had a woman whose heart stopped over at Capitol, not at Market Days, and she was elderly, but we were able to revive her and get her off to the hospital.
If you weren’t a small business owner, what would you be doing?
I don’t know. I have no idea. . . Maybe traveling nursing if I had stayed single.
Guilty pleasure?
Now that they have the beer tent at Market Days it would be fun to go down in the evening and sit at the beer tent, sit around with everybody and watch the end of Market Days. That would be fun ‘cause I’ve never had a beer in the middle of Main Street, so I need to do that this year. And now that I’m at Viking House, the European chocolate, forget about it.
Hidden talent?
I swear I’m a good singer in the shower, but everybody else says ‘absolutely not.’ It sounds good to me. Wild and crazy ideas I guess, most of which would never work.