Yard Sale Heaven – I’m Obsessed

People can be divided into those who like to sleep late on Saturday morning and maybe go to church or golf on Sunday, and those who are on the road at 8 a.m. both days, clutching the newspaper classified section, searching for flea markets and yard sales, determined to be the first one through the gate. Guess which category I’m in.

Those of us with “I brake for yard sales” bumper stickers are motivated by tales of life-changing finds—an original copy of the Declaration of Independence or a Paul Revere tea pot from grandma’s attic, or those Jackson Pollack paintings someone found in the trash. Every yard saler has a tale of the Big Find.



Here’s mine. Maybe 25 years ago, when I was just starting to collect antique photos, I saw a cardboard box labeled “Instant Ancestors” on a front lawn not far from the village green in my own village. In the box I found a battered small, thick leather-bound album filled with CDVs. “CDV” means Carte de Visite, and the photos, wildly popular around the time after the Civil War, are the size of a business card.

I noticed that maybe a dozen of the photos in the album were of Native Americans. The portraits were identified in type as taken by Joel Emmons Whitney at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, of Dakota warriors imprisoned after the Sioux uprising of 1862. Each one, including Chief Little Crow, was identified along with how many white men he had killed.

I was happy to pay the five-dollar price of the album. When I eventually put it up for auction at Skinner’s Galleries and got $500 return on my investment, I felt very smug. Not so much today, because I know that the value of those Whitney Indian photos has climbed so that each one of them would now bring around $500.

All yard salers are looking for that Big Find and my village of Grafton is a happy hunting grounds. (So is Brimfield MA, about 20 minutes away, where in May, July and September they roll out maybe the biggest flea market in the country.)

I think Grafton is one of the prettiest New England villages, thanks to its carefully preserved historic district around the Common. That’s why they filmed “Ah Wilderness” here back in the 1930’s. And around that historic common, with its 300-year-old Inn, I just KNOW there are treasures that will someday appear in a yard sale on someone’s front lawn.



Today, Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, was a very good day, although I don’t think any of the treasures I bought will make me rich. The first place I hit was the home of Carol and Richard, who for many years owned the Grafton Country Store—one of the longest continuously operating. They have a great collection of primitives and early prints, tools, cookware, etc. not to mention hot coffee and free donut holes to welcome the early birds. I bought 21 things, the most expensive of which was an ironstone butter crock at $20.



The next yard sale, also near the Common, greeted me with a wicker antique doll carriage --the twin of one I had as a little girl. But I wasn’t about to spend over a hundred dollars on a duplicate doll carriage, with no granddaughter to give it to. But I then I saw a stunning set of Madeira Lace work – ten place mats and a table runner—with their own blue brocade carrying case plus a handwritten note that it was “Made on the Island of Madeira for the Beede Family, makers of Madeira Wines”.





I have never been able to resist fine textiles and embroideries, so I bought the set of Madeira work, telling myself it was for a daughter’s trousseau, but at the moment, both daughters have a strict embargo against my bringing another thing into their apartment “if I can’t eat it, drink it or date it” as one put it.




The third yard sale, in a red barn in nearby Shrewsbury, was mostly furniture and there’s no more room in my house for furniture, so I came away with only a child’s rocker, which I cleaned up to put in my booth at a nearby group antique shop.




That’s how I justify my obsessive collecting— I say that it’s merchandise for the store.

So after I got back from the yard sales, I cleaned up my treasures and put price tags on them and took them to North Main Street Antiques—at least the ones I couldn’t fit into my own décor (like the apple-themed bathroom with its red lion-footed cast iron tub or the wall in my kitchen that’s filled with heart-shaped cookie cutters and other objects featuring hearts.)



At least I got to play with my treasures before carting them off to the store. And tomorrow, Sunday, I’ll hit the road early, trolling for that One Big Find.

Crone Driving Complaints

I just drove from my daughter’s apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to our home in Grafton, MA – a 180-mile, 3 ½-hour drive that I make (usually round trip) at least once a month. Sometimes I do it alone, other times, like today, I share the driving with my husband.
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Every time I complete the drive — especially by myself -- I’m inordinately proud of the feat. Because I lived in Manhattan for 14 years, I didn’t even get my driver’s license until I was 36 years old, pregnant with our third child and living in the countryside of Massachusetts. (Actually I drove from age 15 to 18 in Minnesota when I was in high school and then quit when I went to college, so had to take driver’s training all over again 18 years later.)

When I got my second driver’s license —pregnant and 36— I tried to avoid ever getting on a main highway, much less driving out of state. But I had to transport the kids to school and on play dates, and eventually I expanded my repertoire.

The drive from Manhattan to Grafton MA is really not bad —up to 96th Street, over to the FDR Drive, over the Triboro (now Robert F. Kennedy) Bridge, then eventually on to the Parkways— Hutchison and Merritt--where commercial vehicles are forbidden, thank God. This is the scenic part —full of wild turkeys and deer and a lot of charming bridges, none of which is identical —like snowflakes.

Then, just before Hartford, I get back on I-91, whether the trucks abound, dwarfing my little Prius. (Those huge double-decker auto carriers seem to rock back and forth because their center of gravity is so high—and I always think they’ll topple over, squashing me like a bug.)

At exit 29, with Hartford in view, I turn off onto I- 84 which is a really boring hour-long stretch until I pick up the Mass Pike at Sturbridge and know I’m only 20 minutes from home.

While driving, I have plenty of time to think about some of the minor annoyances encountered on the road —especially for a crone who is a rather tentative and fearful driver. (Let me say here that in the past 34 years, I’ve never had a speeding ticket and never been in an accident when I was at the wheel --knock on wood! My insurance company ranks me as the safest driver in the family.)

Here are thoughts that passed through my idle mind today as I was driving —not complaints, actually, just observations.

--Have you ever noticed that when some idiot is weaving in and out, speeding like crazy or hanging on your bumper in the silver lane because he thinks you should go faster than 75-- it’s often someone in a red car or red flat-bed truck?

--And when some centenarian ahead of you is going so slowly that you are forced to pass them, it’s often someone in a white or black car? Who is barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel.

--And when you’re trying to merge into a speedy flow of traffic, when someone finally does slow down and wave you in, have you noticed that it’s inevitably a woman?

--But when you’re in the left-hand lane and signal that you want to move to the right lane (because your exit is coming up), most men will immediately speed up upon seeing your turn signal, blocking you and making it impossible for you to change lanes.

--And then, when you discover that there is a long line of cars waiting to turn off at your exit , and you’re sitting patiently in line practicing your deep breathing exercises, some people have no scruples about jumping the line, speeding up to the front and then forcing their way onto the exit ramp, who do you think those line jumpers are? (Hint, I’m married to one. My blue Prius blushes pink every time he does this.)

--And one more observation —who do you think is more likely to jump the queue at the gas station, forget to put the cap back on the gas tank, and neglect to take the receipt for the gas? No hints here.

My kids and my husband think I’m a lousy driver because I frequently move my foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal and never drive over 80 miles per hour (or under the speed limit), but my Prius and my insurance company like my driving just fine. And every time I complete the trek from Manhattan to home I tell myself, “You’ve come a long way, Baby!”