THE GOLDEN AGE OF GARAGE SALES

Haven't been inclined to post… many "deep & profound & penetrating issues" I could write about, but been cleaning my desk, the whole house actually, + getting ready to make a new round of submissions. (Deep & profound enough in its own way.) For the last two weekends, we've (my partner Jocelyne & I) have been taking advantage of garage sale bonanzas. We haven't even been looking for them. We just came across them walking down the street. Jocelyne bought two leather coats, one from England, one from Italy, both very stylish and in pristine condition, for all of $40 for the first and $15 for the other. Even I lucked out on a fabulous leather jacket, which was for sale for $30 at the local cleaners… apparently whoever who was left it, didn't pick it up. This weekend, we bought a gorgeous clay pot for $15, a clay smiling sun (such as we see on astrology charts, but not at all tacky) which we have in the corner of the kitchen, for $15, an extraordinary terra cotta coffee mug for $3, a beautiful wicker/forged iron in/out tray sort of thing for $40 (a bit pricey, but it occasioned my cleanup), & a Faber & Faber collection of poetry called By Heart - 101 Poems to Remember, edited by Ted Hughes, in his final poet laureate years, for $1. (Actually a damned interesting little collection, with a good introductory essay on mnemonic devises.) This from a very interesting young woman with plenty of culture & good taste who was selling off all her things "for higher than average garage sale prices" to go off and volunteer teach in a cooperative school in India. With this higher cause - and pictures up of her cooperative, of the classroom she was going to teach in, & explanations of how she was going to help underprivileged children of India, she was a very persuasive salesperson. Nobody bargained her down.
In North America at least, this has to be the golden age of garage sales. Everybody with so much junk to sell. Even good stuff. As far as clothes are concerned, here in Montreal with outlets like Rennaissance & La Free-prix on Ontario St., if you've got a sharp eye (Jocelyne has that, fortunate for me) and a minimal degree of patience, there's need these days to go to retailers except for socks, shoes and underwear. (A secret perhaps we should keep to ourselves - but then many shy from the possibility of wearing dead people's clothing… and so prefer to shell out to the living dead, at retail prices.)