PETRIFIED TEDDY BEARS AND PRETTY PIE PLATES

It was pouring rain at 6 o'clock. Heck, I told my dog Edward, no garaging today. By 7:15 it was clear and bright. ’Bye, I told Edward and took off.
First sale was not too far away. The ad on Craigslist gave an address, then said “look for the FOR RENT sign on the building without a number on the side.” As I said to the young man having the sale…made perfect sense when you got there!

Speaking of Craigslist ads…today was a treasure trove of goodies. One ad writer just pasted in the first sentence of his ad for the headline, or at least as much of it as would fit, which became the enigmatic MOVING LOTS OF STUFF NO SPACE TO TAKE WITH US WHATEVER YOU NEED WE PRO. There was another Hugh Moving Sale, which I've come to expect. The peripatetic Hugh—I wish he’d find someplace he likes and just settle down. But this ad was a first: HAIRCUT & YARD SALE - $10. Yup, the ad said the person is a licensed cosmetologist who would cut your hair at their yard sale. And here’s my real fave: BI GARAGE SALE (LAGUNA HILLS). I know, I know, it's probably just a typo and they meant to say big, but the ad goes on to promise “something for everyone” so I'm not entirely sure.

Back to the first sale. Nice young man who is moving to Long Beach (about 20 miles away) to a studio. He was serious about lightening his load; I really think he would have accepted any amount for anything in his garage. I found this Harley license frame that I thought Brother Bob might like…

…and asked how much. “Oh, a dollar, a quarter, fifty cents, I don’t care.” I ended up with 3 Harley items for a buck. (Like I said…nice guy!)


Don’t know about you, but I find it quite amusing that Hallmark sells Harley Davidson stuff.
He was also selling his childhood collection of marbles
which I did not buy, though now that I see them in the picture they look kind of cool. Oh well, hopefully some little kids got them who will have a great time playing marbles. There were also some teddy bears, but he said they had belonged to a girlfriend’s kids. “My teddy bears have petrified,” he told me. “The last time I saw them they had turned completely solid.” Which leads me to think we might want to explore the uses of baby drool as a building material. I may have discovered a new, very green and renewable resource!

This hat led to stories about his uncle.
“He was a bellhop at a fancy hotel for many years, and when people would go off and leave things, he’d take them home. And he’d take things home from other places too. When he died, his house was just totally full with little paths going from room to room.” It's good to hear these stories and be reminded not to take home everything you see on Saturday morning.

Admittedly, there was no chance I would buy this.
Yes, it's a leopard spotted glass pumpkin. He said he’d gotten it to give a friend as a gag gift. I think he chickened out.

Up the road I stopped at another sale being minded by a nice lady and her father in law, who claims to be known as Hot Bob. It was actually a rather frustrating encounter because we were all howling with laughter over our conversation, and I can't remember most of his really funny lines. He was determined to sell me something. I turned down a stack of Pyrex pie plates—especially when the deal was I buy the pie dish and then bake him a pie and bring it over. He pulled a vintage Tupperware cake carrier out of a box. “Here, you can bring it over in this.” I pointed out it was a cake carrier, not a pie carrier. He took off the lid to show me the shape of the bottom part—perfect for holding a pie. I took it from him and whacked him with it and said that’s what it was for. (By now his daughter in law was rolling.) “Oooh,” he said, “you do that for about ten minutes and then I'll be ready for you to stop.” He did actually succeed in selling me something, this sweet baking dish.

It's smaller than a normal cake pan, only 7” across, and I love the embossed design. Kind of wish it was on the inside of the plate instead of the outside. Can’t you see a layer of cake with a leaf and flower design baked into it?

Had a good time later talking to another nice lady and her mother, who live next door to each other; her son lives next door to his grandma. A little family compound. The older lady was wearing a North Carolina sweatshirt so I asked if she was from there, since we lived there for several years. She wasn’t, but they had a memorable vacation there, and we regaled each other with North Carolina stories. Somehow I got to talking about this old farmhouse we lived in for a while.
It was “the old Marshall family homeplace” and we always joked about how the Marshall family must all be short and wide, because the rooms had 7 foot ceilings and all the doors were about 4 feet wide. Sure enough, we found out later that pretty much described this tribe of Marshalls.

Only bought one other thing today, this bucket of some kind of building toy. (Anyone know what these are called?)

Bought these from Hot Bob’s daughter in law. I'll give them to one of my libraries, but first I get to play with them. Hot Bob watched me hand over a dollar for them and protested that I'd only given him fifty cents for his dish. “Yeah,” I agreed, “but she didn’t give me any hard sell.” He shook his head. “I'd hate to have to make my living as a salesman.”