Mike's Barn in Hartwell--North Georgia

When I met Mike in Hope, Arkansas, seven years ago, he told me he was building a barn.  I pictured a tiny little barn in the North Georgia mountains.

When I finished my New England sojourn and saw him again, I saw this three-story barn on what he calls "Brown Mule Farm."

This is where he lives.  Next door is a warehouse he built to house his huge collection of fifties memorabilia and street rods.  Next door to the warehouse is a Shell Filling Station he built before I met him--complete with restored gas pumps, working juke boxes,  a barber shop and soda fountain.  Neon signs are everywhere.   It's like an always-open museum, and people stop by to see it every day.

Does he want to sell anything?  No way.  This is his lifelong project and he does it for fun.  "I don't care about money," he says.

He has a sign on the front of the barn that sums up his passion for what he does: "Just another day in Paradise."

Visiting Mike on Monday, I spotted a beautiful antique red wagon--and before I knew it he was lifting it out to send home with me.  "Are you sure you want to part with this?" I asked.

"You can have anything I've got," he said--and he meant it.

I'd taken my one Madame Alexander doll from childhood to see if he could re-string it.

"You know I can!" he said.  "I can fix anything but a butt crack and a broken heart."

I'll be heading back to Texas on Tuesday.  In the back of Blue will be a little oak desk that used to be Day's when she was Elena's age; a red wagon wrapped in a blanket from the Brown Mule Farm, and a perfectly restored sixty-year-old doll.