franksolich watches primitives at garage sales. As I was rather burned out from OSC—it’s a long, perilous job, and when one’s a lone wolf observing the terrain of Skins’s island, one can’t even trust other moles--and needed a break, on Friday afternoon I headed to town to see what was up.
What was up was that this was the weekend of the town-wide garage sales, nearly every abode having one. Garage sales aren’t my thing to do, but as I needed something different, I stayed around all that evening, and then went into town in the morning and spent all day, watching.
franksolich doesn’t do television, but this was an adequate substitute.
Now, it needs explained that up here on the roof of Nebraska, on the eastern slope of the Sandhills, garage sales aren’t like they apparently are elsewhere. This part of the country isn’t old enough to have amassed antiquities and “collectibles.†Flea-market profiteers avoid the territory like the plague, because there isn’t anything worth their swindling.
Essentially, garage sales around here are derived from the ancient pioneer “spring cleaning,†tossing out all that had been accumulated the past twelve months, but isn’t wanted any more. The children are a year older, and their clothes don't fit them any more. The husband bought a new power-saw, and doesn’t need his old one any more. The wife got a new vacuum cleaner for Mother’s Day, and doesn’t need her old one any more.
And too, the purpose of such sales is merely to get rid of junk, not to make money.
If one’s offered a dollar for a three-year-old Hamilton Beach heavy-duty electric mixer, one takes it.
It cleans out the house and the garage, and makes room for different stuff, no other reason.
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It didn’t take me long to run into the first person who reminded me of a primitive—the vindictive primitive, the “Vinca†primitive, to be specific. She even looked like the vindictive primitive, a stout woman in her late 60s.
It was shortly after noon on Friday that she came resolutely marching up the driveway, padlocked purse in hand.
Her walk was a rolling one, as if a small boat upon the ocean.
She immediately squawked that it was so…..disorganized.
It was disorganized, she was reminded, because the sale didn’t start until 3:00 that afternoon, and things were just now being set up. As I watched, I hoped the owner would chase the old bat away, but was greatly bothered when she said it was “okay†for the vindictive primitive to sift through things as they were being sorted out and set up.
Big mistake.
There were lots and lots of boxes waiting to be unpacked, and the vindictive primitive made a mess of all of them, in her haste to find something “good†before anybody else could.
In fact, she damned near broke a few things.
And she was sharp; determined to cheat the other guy before he could cheat her.
Well, after finding a few things—this was still an hour and a half before the sale was to start—she had the
chutzpah to demand that they be discounted substantially.
I was greatly relieved when the owner, growing some spine, refused. The goods would be discounted Saturday afternoon, what hadn’t been sold, but not before then.
The vindictive primitive—I forgot to mention she had a HOPE AND CHANGE bumper-sticker on her vehicle, pretty faded and tattered, but still there, from four years ago—lingered over a couple of boxes of fine china, and remarked that they seemed rather high-priced for Made In China Dollar General ceramics.
It was pointed out to her that it was actually Limoges china, from France, and from the 1940s, the owner saying it’d been a wedding present for the parents back then, and was complete, no chips or other damage, hardly ever used, and it was surely a buy at forty bucks for an eight-place set, plus the sugar bowl, creamer, gravy boat, two platters, and three large bowls.
Well, that was overpriced, the haughty primitive replied, and walked away in a huff.
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The sale that day lasted until 8:00 in the evening, and about fifteen minutes before things were shut down for the night (to begin again at 8:00 the next morning), an apparition walked slowly up the driveway, pulling a child’s little red wagon behind her.
She was repeating over and over, murmuring something that sounded like “freepers killed Andy, freepers killed Andy, freepers killed Andy,†or something vaguely like that.
Despite the torrid heat of the Sandhills, she was wearing four winter overcoats. There was a small child sitting in the bed of the wagon, whom she introduced as her great-great-great-grandson.
Looking very much like the pie-and-jam primitive, the “grasswire†primitive, she didn’t look old enough to have spawned five generations in six and a half decades, but that’s what she said he was.
She took her time going through things as the sale was kept open for her. She loaded the wagon with garish old plastic Christmas greenery, beaten-up
papier-mache Santa Clauses, cheap plastic Christmas tree ornaments, Made In China Dollar General “candy dishes†with the holly and the ivy crudely painted on them, and old bent cardboard cut-outs of dancing snowmen.
The pie-and-jam primitive kept the sale going nearly an hour late, but the owner was gratified, as the purchases were going to save her the time and trouble of hauling it to the dump after the sale was over.
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Because the garage sale that I’d helped set up the previous evening was too much out in the sun for me, the next morning I thought I should check out other sales, to see if there might be something I needed.
Of course, there never is, but it’s fun watching the people as if on television in a half-hour situation comedy.
The first place I stopped, in a shaded area, there was a big old guy with his long grey hair tied back in a pony-tail, wearing an Oklahoma Sooners sweatshirt. With him was apparently his wife, a heavy-set grey-haired woman who looked older than she probably was.
Aha, I thought; the one and only Mrs. Alfred Packer the “hippywife†primitive and Wild Bill, the “hippyhubby†primitive.
They were dickering over some large galvanized-steel basin or tub, about 4’ across in size, and the price being asked seemed a little high to me, given that such things are a dime a dozen around here, although I really have no idea what they’re used for.
Then I saw laying on the bottom of the tub some enormous hog-killing cutlery, big enough even to cut up a fully-grown adult male. Some heavy-duty stuff here, and usually not cheap.
So they were arguing about the price for the whole thing, not just the big basin.
Seller and buyer agreed upon a price, after which Wild Bill pulled out a couple of crisp new $10 bills, their ink barely dry.
Oh no, I thought, and I was about to say something, but then remembered that the resident of this particular home is one of the few Democrats for nine counties all around, and God stayed my lips. Her college-aged daughter, majoring in “dance†somewhere up in Minnesota, had lobbied loudly for the Magic One back in 2008, when the sentiment of most Democrats in this state were in favor of the worthier candidate for the Democrat presidential nomination.
So I let it be; people need to get what they deserve.
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Sometime later, I ended up at the garage sale being held by the vindictive primitive, who’d been the first customer at the sale the previous evening.
She still had that rolling walk, as if she’d recently had her hips replaced.
I picked up a most curious-looking china dish, seeing it was marked $55.
I was about to protest that that seemed, uh, a little high, but anticipating me, she commented, “that’s Limoges china, from France, a pattern that was discontinued in 1927. They’re very rare pieces now, and I could probably get a hundred bucks for it on eBay.â€
I turned it over, seeing “Dollar General made in China†on the bottom.
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At the height of the afternoon, I decided the sun was too oppressive and decided to quit, but just before then, I happened to come upon the garage sale being held by the winter overcoat model. As she walked around, she was still babbling “freepers killed Andy, freepers killed Andy, freepers killed Andy.â€
Upon seeing me, she interrupted her mumbling monologue, reminding me she had pies for sale too, and home-canned jams and preservatives.
I glanced inside. There was a sign announcing “a slice of pie or a jar of jam, $2.50, but free to government employees.â€
I passed because of the injustice of it all; free to the rich, but the poor had to pay.
Most of her wares were
kitsch, something with which Leona Helmsley of DUmmieland, the “flyarm†primitive, probably decorates her Streisandian digs in New Jersey. But feeling sorry for the addled old woman, I made my only purchase of the day, paying twenty-five cents for a 100% cotton white pillowcase that she supposed was an antimacassar, but to be honest, she really had no idea what it was.
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So, the weekend shot, for franksolich tomorrow it’s back to being Up To Something.
