Market Days

   Janet's annual garage sale takes weeks of preparation.  First Janet cleans out her garage to make space for the merchandise.  Then her daughter and her mother and her sister and her friend Donna the antique picker all sort thought their households and storage areas to choose items to sell.  They make lots of trips to our cul-de-sac in order to store things in Janet's garage.  Judy and I add a few giveaways  to  the pile.  Janet and Donna spend hours pricing the jewelry and clothes and furniture.
    The night before the big opening, Robert and and Rob and Randy gather to set up tables and string tarps over them.  We hear laughing on into the wee hours as Janet and Donna finished up the pricing.  The early birds come very early, so this year  I headed over with my coffee to help a little and to grab my choice find:  a tent for Maxine to play in when she visits.

Janet's garage sale

     For three days Janet's mother Wauneta sat at the cash box.  One of her elderly friends spent an afternoon sitting there with her.   Janet's sister came and went, her husband and in- laws brought supplies and food, and Kelli and Donna talked to customers.  For Judy and me, there was always someone next door to visit with, anytime of day or evening.
     I hooted with laughter when Janet told me that she never made money on her garage sale.   Between the cost of advertising and the price of the pizza and drinks she feeds everybody each day, she just about breaks even.  "Why do you do it?"  I asked
    "It's a social thing," Janet insisted.

Jumble of donations

     The following weekend I worked at the church rummage sale, this year dubbed the Pink Elephant Bazaar.  This sale also took weeks of preparation by 40 or 50 people. We sorted and priced mounds of donations and displayed them by category.   We had a children's room and a room full of clothing all on hangers and a vintage and Christmas room.  Outside along the sidewalk  were stations for furniture, household items, and books.    As Bob Smith wheeled a donated toilet onto the sidewalk he joked, "We aim to please, and please aim."

Marion working at bazaar

     I find big events with lots of stuff confusing, so I asked the organizers to give me one simple job.    I stuck to the book sale.  I watched in awe  as Sheila and the other leaders made it all work.  Sheila,  who was a Keno runner in Las Vegas in a former life, circulated with her money belt to make sure everybody had just enough cash for change and not too much extra.  Alanya, the collector, kept an eye out for shoplifters.  The men of the church  were poised to move things on request. They became a well-oiled machine during the breakdown and clean up phase on Saturday.

Katie with kids' stuff

    As I struggled to keep the books upright and the customers' money straight, I ran the old screed about stuff through my head.  Just look at all this junk!  Who needs it?  Obviously, we didn't.  We work and work to keep our houses clear...  at this point I remembered the bag for Goodwill that my mother kept in her front hall closet.  She would try to pass the bags off on her five daughters.  The top of the bag would have things we might be interested in--dishes, scarves, blouses, etc--but we each learned to feel the bottom of the bag first.  My mother would try to sneak in books that way.  "No books, Mom, I don't need any more books!"..We work so hard to keep our houses clear, and still it accumulates!  Think of all the cheap female labor it took to produce these things, and all the free female labor it takes to pass them on!

Book sale

      I took a break from my inner rant to help a young woman who was exclaiming over a sewing book from 1972, with clear instructions and stylish black-and-white illustrations.  I looked at a copy of Cowboy Small with a grandmother, and reminisced with her about how much we loved to read it to our children.  I steered a big man who was interested in the Gnostic gospels to a book by Elaine Pagels. 
    Then I remembered  the quilt on our bed, the portable crib for the baby, the pinball game, the Disney Princess puzzle book for Maxine's visit, all bought at the rummage sale over the years.  OK, maybe these sales are one good way to recycle, to help people find useful objects at a low price.  But all that hauling and moving and cleaning!  Surely there's a more efficient way?  There must be a better way to raise money for the church...
    In the  evening people streamed from six  directions to the hill in back of the old Carnegie Library across the street from the rummage sale.  They set up their lawn chairs and blankets and broke out their picnics.  A band played oldies and bluegrass. There was free barbecue for the teens who help at the library, along with just a few speeches.  Children  scampered through the fountain as the sky turned pink in the west.
    I thought about market days in old Europe, and farm families who drove their wagons into town on Saturdays.  I know how important it is to me to leave the house sometime every day  beginning in  September, when the daylight  changes angles and no longer shines into our windows.  Honey and chocolate, stamps and coffee filters, dahlias and bacon rolls, all pull me  into the groceries and flower stands and bakeries to shop.  It is a social thing, and thank goodness for it.