- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2041
Friday morning and I've hit the Mennonite Thrift Shop - a few small treasures and then I discover a huge church pew, curved, perhaps 8 feet in length, $75.00.
I want it, it's a bargain, it won't be here long, but try as I might I can't find a place for it in my head. Not the living room, the office, the kitchen, the bedroom, it will have to stay.
It's perfect, 8 feet in width, curved, it's exactly what I wasn't looking for it. I exercise some great restraint and leave it.
***
Saturday morning and I'm up - as always - far too early, there's an early sale down in Hillhurst, then a parade in Kensington. And driving down 20th Avenue, early, I'm the only one, clouds and street grey with impending rain, what do I see but a Superhero, sparkly cape and tight lycra leggins, perhaps 15, 16 years old, jogging down the street.
An omen, but I'm not sure what for.
The first sale in Hillhurst, there's a small group of dealers waiting for it to open. It's now past 8:00 and one of the dealers has been persistently calling the host of the garage sale for the past 10 minutes, eager to get in and then on with business. It's beginning to sprinkle rain.
I decide not to wait. Whoever is holding the sale won't be in a good temper when they wake up and have to answer the phone to be told they're late for their own garage sale.
Kensington, and by now it's pouring, and I drive about the neighborhood but there's only one garage sale, all the wares covered in plastic tarps. A wireless phone, soaking wet, 25 cents. "25 Cents? Does it work?" I ask and the organizers laugh from the relatively dry safety of their porch.
There will be no sales in Kensington today, there are no garages, only front lawns, and with the rain they'll cancel, and the rain - abundant, heavy, has me thinking of calling it an early day as well. But I persist - the greatest treasures will be had if only because nobody will be out searching....
9:00 and I'm at the St. Edmund's sale, plastic tarps, cold trailers and church cellars, nothing.
From here on to Tuscany - a neighborhood I'd usually give a miss to, but they have garages and so fewer of their sales will be cancelled.
And in Tuscany business is flourishing, there are loads of cars on the street, people driving, my windows keep fogging up and I roll them down to drive by slowly and see what treasures are on offer.
Exactly what I would have guessed. Last years catalog treasures, Chintz & Co, the "Out of Fashion" decor items, one person - from the abundance of cards and cheap new stationary - used to run a gift shop (there must be great money in gift shops if they can afford to live in Tuscany), nothing, 1 dozen, 2 dozen sales, not a single thing.
Eventually I find a Bass Guitar, Fender, in case with cable for amp, asking $50.00, I offer $40.00.
And that's the day.
Returning home, close to 12:00 and I've held my pee all morning - dancing on the street, pinching it in the car, the net haul for the 6:00 AM morning wake up 3 plant pots (I need dirt) and a bass guitar for the boy.
Next week, now, next week there will be something...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1881
Now this is a great weekend.
It begins Friday morning, there's one in Elboya worth a quick visit before work - some bangles for the daughter, picture frame, a few plant pots.
***
Saturday Morning it's raining, I'm up at 6:00 AM writing, waiting. I have a huge list of sales to hit, a church sale at 8:00, others at 8:30, parades of garage sales all over the city beginning at 9:00, my map is huge.
And it's grey, foggy, raining when I begin...
The church sale, a handful of old jewelry, I'll sort through this later. From here to the Wildwood parade of garage sales, and this takes me a couple of hours. Every sale I go to there's something to buy, plant pot, bangle, book, a quarter here, a dollar there. And it goes for hours and I'm still turning up treasures, I get home at 1:00, unload the car, this was a day that could have gone on forever.
Then to work, where the treasures are dispersed - something this morning for everyone, a budget of $60.00 exhausted in dollar & toonie purchases, some jewelry for the girls, a fifty cent phone to replace one that was broken at work, a wireless mike for G to broadcast himself onto the radio, a pedometer for the bosses nephew to track how many miles he does (or doesn't) walk each night....it's a mini-christmas.
Very little for myself, a couple of antique camera tripods, each from different sales, two dollars apiece, a couple of plant pots, but, really, my needs are modest and overall it was a very successful day.
***
Sunday morning, on my way to the Hillhurst Flea Market, another garage sale. And here, in a box of antique brasses I turn up a half dozen vintage church candlesticks - auctioneers marks: "Sisters of Providence", used at a boys school outside of Lacombe the owner tells me, a dollar apiece, and 2 antique ceramic bedpans, 3 dollars each, and the day has just begun and I'm now distracted, hurry through the flea market and go off to find yet more garage sales ...
and, almost nothing else, a flatbed Canon Scanner - for two dollars, and my day is complete, the other ones today are busts.
***
Monday morning and I'm off to the local thrift shops, find the donated treasures, and again I'm in luck, a first edition copy of Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" - two dollars, a pair of antique candlesticks - my first pair (proper) - this season - (and I was wondering where they had all gone...) for $4.00 - excellent condition with the pushups still in, I'm of the suspicion they match another set I have squirreled away someplace...
And my floor downstairs is littered with the unfiled treasures - a VERY SUCCESSFUL garage sale weekend, the kind dreams are built upon. And only 4 days until next weekend....
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1958
Friday morning and it's pouring, I'm up early before work and on my way to the first stop - the Lighthouse Church in the old Women in Need on Horton Road. It promises great things, I haven't been there forever....
Outside it's a deluge, it's impossible to get motivated in this. All week, raining, pouring....
The wiper blades on the car, they're in need of replacing, have to remember this for the next servicing.
At the church, (not a church so much as a small bay) an assortment of antique tools, some electronics, tools, miscellaneous rubbish. I search, some small things, nothing big. Dealers.
Then back into the rain, home and work.
Saturday morning and the rain has stopped - there's a "parade" as part of the Richmond/Knob Hill community clean up, driving about the neighborhood at 8:00 it's not yet started, I find one, kid's stuff...
From here over to Scarboro, which is having it's annual parade of garage sales, a couple of walking sticks, picture frame, artist's palette, other small and useless treasures, it's not as good as it's been in past years - where the entire neighborhood was set up on their lawn, this year there's only a few houses and they're all several blocks apart.
And I'm missing treasures. At one, a giant stuffed pheasant perched on a log, Ju-ju dealer lady (English and covered with the sort of bad-handmade tattoos that make you think she either did them herself or did time in prison) sweeps in and picks it up for fifty cents...
I'm annoyed.
Now, really, if I wanted or needed the stuffed pheasant I should have asked, but it's one of those things you need to think about - yes, I need it, but what for exactly...?
But now that she's purchased it I decide that I wanted it very badly, I mean, fifty cents? How do you go wrong? And I think of all the things I could have done with it. Made it a perch upon my shoulder. Or there's this waitress at work, and it would look amazing perched in her hair....
And again, another sale, electric guitar, case, stand, amp, good condition, $75.00, while I'm debating a dealer sweeps in and takes the lot for $50.00.
I'm really annoyed, not that I needed a guitar, but for the boy (and he doesn't need another one either....) - but it's the PRINCIPAL, the PRINCIPAL...
This is how the day goes, treasures stealing away from under my nose, there are some good things - furniture, coffee tables, couches, other things, good, but nothing I need or desperately want, I think - week 5 and all, that I must be getting saturated.
And all the way home, stopping, finding things that I talk myself out of purchasing, plant pots, plastic organizers, video games, some days are like this.
This is it. Week 5 of garage saling, more or less a bust.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2115
Now it's a long weekend, and usually the pickings are slim, but I've checked Kijiji and found no less than 7 pages of garage sales this weekend and so I made my map.
1st Stop - Thorncliffe, I'm off at 8:00 hoping to catch the early worms.
But after a quick ride about the neighborhood I discover that I'm the only one up, and so head back downtown to grab a coffee to go.
By the time I'm back there are a few underway, and a few more setting up.
It's nothing but junk. All junk. Junk junk junk. The best find is a cat tree and house someone has left in an alley by the trash, and while I'm deliberating picking it up (it'll need recovering) I remind myself that I'm not here trash picking today, it's business, and a few more of these useless garage sales later I've abandoned all hope and start heading out to Springbank via Bowness.
Not a thing purchased in Thorncliffe.
All along the way I stop and follow signs, nothing, nothing, nothing. In Bowness there's a couple big ones on the street, again nothing and nothing, one a few pieces of cheap costume jewelry, otherwise nothing. A reuse - recycle store is going out of business, some big concrete planters in the back, open to offers, but at 200lbs apiece I'm too discouraged to dicker or try and load them into the car. The inside of the store is a mess, possibly, if I dug and rummaged, but the water and power has been turned off and the smell of an overused and underflushed toilet puts me off a more thorough search.
And on and on, eventually arriving on Old Banff Coach road, there's a sale out in Springbank that used the word "Antiques", and while usually that's a caution that the prices will be high I just need to rest my eyes, find something half-worthwhile....
I find the sale, one of those telescoping distance roads, "4 KM ahead" signs warn you, then when you've clocked your 4 KM there's another sign "2 KM ahead", and so it goes, Zeno's paradox brought to life, eventually I arrive, antique tools and hurricane lamps, mismatched china and vinegar cruets, the proprietors of the sale discussing the treasures they've already let go (better by far than what remains) ...
From here home, vary the route, more sales, by 1:00 I'm home having spent $6.00 on coffee and $12.00 on garage sale items ($5.00 of which went to a new phone, the last 2 I bought proved not to work...)
An absolutely fruitless day.
***
Sunday it's the Hillhurst flea market, the dealers, it would appear, had as rough a go of it as I did, a pair of cufflinks for a dollar, a blue Medalta beanpot, (blue being rare, otherwise I have too many beanpots as it is...).
***
All in all it's a no-star garage sale weekend. Time would have been far better spent sleeping in, reading a book, anything but garage saling....
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2219
Week 2 and they're scattered far and wide about the city. Now there are some parades in the farther flung suburbs, but there's no way I'm going to drive that far, there's a promising looking one, a barn filled with antiques some 20 KM north of Cochrane, but to get there, time to get back, the day's over, really, and so I have to give it a miss. It's an impossible day, really, to make a map, they're everywhere today and so eventually I decide to retrace an old familiar route - down Elbow Drive to Brittania.
And it's a great day; Brittania's "Parade" is small, about 8 houses scattered over a few blocks, most are desperate (contrary to what you might think the rich shop at Wal-Mart just as much as the poor do..), but at the final one I find an old teak chest, perhaps 16 tall, 18 deep, 30 inches wide, inside are numerous small compartments for hiding things in, a pip at $20.00, and an antique oak planter, 4 bartley twist legs and a spindle basket on top, perfect, and these are the treasures that keep me going...
I continue down Elbow Drive, there's a parade of sales in Haysboro, I turn to follow numerous signs, find the sales, many of them are too well hidden, and it's a game of numbers after all so I keep going, no time to search for the poorly flagged sales, some treasures may have to remain undiscovered...
Mental Note: Never turn left for a garage sale, always right, always right, saves time....
I find an antique Red Man Picnic basket, with politically incorrect logo inside the hamper, $5.00, keep going, an antique back massager that looks like a floor sander, weighs 20 lbs, all shiny steel and thick power cords - "How Much?" I ask, "$15.00" is the answer, too much for a novelty, keep going, a couple of books for the boy (the Dirk Gently Holistic Detective agency, he liked the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy), the collected letters of Queen Victoria, other small things, by 11:00 the treasures are done and I'm on my way back home.
Stop at the St. Anthony's Church - pointless, really, whatever they have looks like well picked leftovers from several weeks ago, not the slightest trace that a treasure was ever here, and finally, after numerous fruitless detours I'm home.
Sunday Morning I'm woken early by the lugubrious howls of a cat forgotten outside overnight, I would ignore him, not give into his wailing but the neighbors, they shouldn't have to put up with this and so I let him in, he sulks about wary of my foot, I help him downstairs to his own private Guantanamo Bay, the cat carrier, he can howl to his heart's content there but this revenge is no good, I'm up and so set off...
The Hillhurst Flea Market, where I can find those treasures I missed - a silver flute, $30.00, I pick it up - telling myself that I need one for travel, the other is too fine, now really, I never play either but that will change...and an old upright silverware case, with Chinese painting on the front in gilt, perfect as a jewelry box for the daughter, I talk to the book fairy and he tells me that CBC has their annual "Canada Reads" book sale at the curling rink and I head down to check it out.
Oddly enough I've never been.
And here, countless books, and I pass an hour or so going through them - they are ordered according to genre, but not really, it's a rough guide at best and so I take my time, walk the length of the tables, I'm looking for certain particular books that I haven't read or books that I have read and can recommend and pass on, there are tens of thousands of books here and I take the time to read every title...
Robertson Davies, every one of his books is here, a hundred different editions, paperback, hardcover, Atwood as well, I'm not looking for these...
I'm looking for specific books. And they're conspicuous by their absence. Not a single copy of "The Famished Road' by Ben Okri, although there are others by him. No books by Nabokov, Pynchon, Casanova, Miller, Bukowski, Laclos, and possibly they've been picked (there is more than one book fairy in Calgary), but they're still putting out boxes....
Slowly, slowly, reading every table, walking up and down the length of the tables, reading every title, taking my time, I've got time...
In a couple of hours I've found perhaps a dozen books - Edward Lear - "Journal of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria", a few other travel books - some recommendations to pass on, nothing specifically that I was looking for but that's the nature of Serendipity, you never find what you're looking for but perhaps I've found something just as good...these to be added to the pile of a hundred books or so at the foot of the bed, books I intend to read - if only, when I can find time.
Home, a living room filled to the brim with this weekend's treasures - a four star garage sale weekend and a couple of hours work to sort and place these new treasures.