In many small towns, yard sales are a colossal event, providing something to do on Saturday mornings and giving locals a place to shop locally for things that require a 70-mile drive to a bigger town.
While living in Wyoming, I looked forward to May when flowers and yard sales bloomed. After collecting addresses all week, each Friday the radio station announced the following day’s yard sales and then delivered copies of the list to a local business. On Saturday morning–or Friday afternoon if you were super organized and/or eager for an early start– you could pick up the list. Many yard sale hosts also posted a flyer at the town bulletin board, near downtown. Impossible to miss a yard sale in that town.
Yard sale morning was a social event unless a person was too stuffy or embarrassed to travel the yard sale trail. Groups of people, mostly women, floated around to each. I had my group too, and we never traveled in any particular order. Groups greeted each other at the sales, telling jokes and laughing: Hey I wanted that, or Don’t you have enough Tupperware yet or, If you buy that old broom you will have to do some work for a change. We reported to the others about which sales were especially good. I often heard comments like: You must hurry to the sale at 9th Street if you want books or bypass the one at Main Street, its all junk.Sometimes the negative comments were just sniping about someone that someone else did not like.
When I started, I was rather indiscriminate about what I bought. For some reason, junk I would never buy at the store seems so enticing and exotic when placed on a yard sale table. My thoughts would go like this after seeing yet another tacky plastic tablecloth: Oh I might use that, it’s only 50 cents. Or, the greatest excuse/lie ever: this would be great for camping. Soon, my house and garage filled up with stuff I might use someday and never did. I had several boxes of vases and plastic bowls, funky wall art, camping do-dads, and flower pots. Thankfully, the church had an annual rummage sale, and I donated most of my purchases from the previous summer. Then, I learned to carefully consider what I buy and aimed for things I need and would otherwise buy new. My favorite: a long burgundy wool coat with a velvet-lined hood which I still wear during graveside services held during the cold prairie winters. I also allowed certain treasures, like books, vintage linens, wool blankets, nice hunks of fabric and craft supplies.
After the tour of yard sales, which could stretch out for a few hours on big weekends, the yard sale clans of women headed out for breakfast. The only cafe was full of mostly retired farmers drinking coffee and growling about the modern world; however when the yard sale women arrived the men vacated the tables in a hurry. Over pancakes, eggs, and endless coffee, we discussed everything and everybody. As we left, the grumpy, limping farmers returned to reclaim their seats.
In my new town, 700 miles to the north and east, yard sales occur infrequently. At first I was disappointed, then I learned about a tradition far more enticing than a simple yard: the auction sale.
To be continued….
