Wednesday, March 29, 2023

prospecting



    If you've ordered cloth recently, a big batch of orders left the PO on Monday so...soon.  Thank you all. This is a first, selling out thread and cloth.

    Spring and spring cleaning are here. I would love to take an old-fashioned junking expedition. Heading out on a Saturday morning and stopping at every yard sale sign I see. Carry cash and maybe even dicker a little. 

    
    Many years ago, my friend Barb and I would plot a course from the garage sales listed in the most current Pennysaver. Remember those? I honestly don't remember what either of us was prospecting for. It wasn't cloth. Our tastes in most things were diametrically opposed. She went for what I call Americana Kitsch and I looked for Bizarro & Sorry I Bought it a Week Later. 

After a rather wasted (in more ways than one) day, we headed back to her place at dusk. A few streets from home, a big yard sale was long over and the unloved stuff was piled on the curb to wait for the garbage man.

     She just had to have a large platform rocking chair with overstuffed cushions. There was also a big box of hundreds of empty aluminum film canisters. You know the kind. So, something for each of us, but the chair would not fit into the trunk of my car. We tried. As big as the trunk of a '53 Chevy is, the two of us could not lift and turn the chair in a way to make it fit. 
    
    So we did what people did back in the seventies. We sat on the curb and split a joint to consider the problem. There was a coil of nylon rope in the trunk and somehow we decided that this chair would survive being dragged behind the car for a few streets.

    The streetlights came on. The mosquitos found us. We roped up the chair and turned the radio up loud to drown out reasoning and headed for her place. She was nattering on about our route for the Sunday sales and I forgot I was dragging a hundred-pound chair and picked up speed to all of twenty-five in this asphalt-paved residential neighborhood. 
    
        "Stop!!" she yelled. The dregs of another failed yard sale were heaped on a curb and she wanted to check it out. I jumped on the brakes and the Chair launched itself into the air to crash into the implacable steel bumper of my two-ton Chevy. I had also forgotten the box on the roof while we were figuring out how to transport the chair. 
    At the sudden stop, the box flew forward, hit the hood, and dumped hundreds of tinkling little metal canisters rolling into the street. Porch lights popped on from both sides of the street. I cut the rope, jumped back in the car, and we took off, giggling until our guts ached, the dead chair and hundreds of twinkling metal eyes in my review mirror.

Simpler times.







7 comments:

Cozy Knitting said...

I live in a senior community. Not assisted living, but a lot of retirees in a village. The estate sales are beyond amazing. When folks die or leave they sell EVERYTHING! The best, of course, are the ones with a former quilter or knitter. My son and his wife bought the condo next to mine as their respite away from the city on weekends. They practically furnished the place by going to estate sales. My son has never had any interest until he went with me a few times. He's hooked. My hunting buddy moved away, so I haven't been to many lately.

Nancy said...

I used to map 'em out too...Carson City, 1980. I too knew one who's whole house was furnished/decorated from yard sales and boy did it look like it!! lol
I was on the hunt for vintage, antique, usable quirky...and found it.
Thanks for your funny story,, which brought back memories.

Liz A said...

twinkling and tinkling ... my mind imagines the sound and surely that's the scent of burned rubber on asphalt that has joined the party in my head ...

Don and I went thrifting yesterday and then visited friends up the road from our Hill Country house who are now moving ... afterward Don commented that we really don't have room to add more stuff to our respective pantries of creative fodder ... time to start weeding

jude said...

oh ha, yard sales just beginning here.
thrift shops are all but useless these days. dumping grounds for failed retailers.

Joanne S said...

Reminding me of outrageous trips in the car with my Gardening Friend Patty.
I often wonder why we didn't die in a speeding car crash or get hopelessly LOST.
If you have never driven with a Born and Raised in Boston Driver- You haven't really lived on the edge.....yet

Deb Lacativa said...

Joanne you reminded me of the curbside plant rescue fail. Someone left three large potted mystery plants by their trash cans. Of course, sanitation pickup didn't take them. I pulled up in the Vistacruise and loaded all three in the way back. When I got home, an entire ant colony was busy exploring the interior of the car. So much tasty there with the kids.

ARTISUN said...

LOLOL Loved your adventure!