A yard sale is mostly sport

The Boston Herald

August 20, 1997

BEVERLY BECKHAM

It's a curious custom, taking things you don't want and no longer need, dragging them to the front lawn, marking them with a price tag, then selling them.

But that's what we do. A dime for a Johnny Tilliston record. It's not high finance. It's trading.

At the end of the day, all you have is a pocketful of change, but it's like when you were a kid and shook coins out of a piggy bank. It's found money. And it's fun.

We had a yard sale Saturday because my oldest daughter went looking for something in the cellar a few weeks ago and came back upstairs and announced, "You really have to get rid of your junk. It's taking over the place."

Junk? What do you mean junk?

She meant the hand-made windmill from Holland that was both lamp and music box, a huge thing sitting on top a chest of drawers, with one drawer missing. She meant a 30-year-old hi-fi that took up half a room, suitcases with broken zippers, cameras that used flashbulbs, Halloween costumes, stuffed animals, children's games, records and toys.

But we couldn't just throw these things away. My parents gave me that hi-fi. I used the missing drawer to make a doll house for this daughter when she was 5. These things had history.

"How much is the Big Wheel?" asked a woman walking around our yard.

A dollar, I said.

A dollar for a plastic toy that my youngest daughter, Julie, pushed up the driveway, then rode back down at least a million times, hair flying, a frown of concentration on her little face, her legs straight out in front of her.

You sell Candyland, Simon, Battleship, ice skates that were Julies', roller skates that were Lauren's, and you tell their stories. And people listen because they've been there, and they understand.

Little kids, clutching a dollar, raced to the box of toys. But when they asked how much, and you said a dime, they were cool. Their mothers must have taught them not to get too excited. They counted as you made change, then ran back to their mothers shouting, "Look what I got!"

Collectors came first to pick out the good stuff. Then the browsers. A few saw something beautiful. The Nina, and Pinta and Santa Maria were snatched up. Old tapes for a dollar. A collection of Russian pins.

Then the neighbors descended to see if our junk is anything like theirs. And then, people who needed things. They bought the blankets and bedspreads, pots, pans, china, glasses.

"How much for a bedspread?"

A dollar.

"I'll give you 75 cents."

And we took it.

A man who parked on the lawn held up roller blades: "How much?"

Two dollars, we replied. The roller blades were new. Two dollars seemed fair.

The man shook his head and headed back to his car. In broken English, said: "Shame on you. You sit here in your big mansion selling stuff you don't want to poor people when you should be giving it away. What kind of people are you?"

Our instinct was to argue. This is no mansion. We're not rich.

But we kept silent because it was easy to see it from his side. Here we were sitting in the shade on lawn chairs collecting money for stuff we didn't want.

He ruffled our feathers. But he made us think. He may not have understood that in America yard sales are more sport than commerce. But, before he arrived, we didn't understand how this sport appears to people seeing it for the first time.