Hey kids! It's another MotherTalk blog tour!*
There's a ringing in my ears after reading Bruce Littlefield's Garage Sale America: Garage sales. Tag sales. Barn sales. Yard sales. Rummage sales. Estate sales. Sales, sales, sales. Yep, not much that's more American than buying and selling.
Oh--one more thing more American. Accumulating crap. Which we then turn around and garage sale to others.
We are a nation of bingers, hoarders and purgers, aren't we? I'd feel vaguely ill about it, except that we manage to have a pretty good time at it, and the evidence is in Littlefield's book. "Garage Sale America" is a relentlessly cheerful romp through the back yards, barns and garages of the heartland, collecting treasures, junk and stories as it progressses.
The stories are what make Littlefield's book so much fun (it's a great bathroom book--the kind you can open up casually to any page for a quick read). Listen to the World's Oldest Garage Saler, 90-year-old Wini, talk about melting her boots in the Depression stomping out a dump fire to save an old Pennsylvania Dutch pie safe. (She sold the safe for $600 and still wears the boots: "They're just a little flattened out.")
And then there's what is for me the best part, a tour round Littlefield's house to show how he uses all this stuff he buys at garage sales. My favorite: He has a pair of old classroom roll-up maps he uses as window shades. Coincidentally, they fit his bedroom windows as if they were made for the purpose.
For serious garage salers, there's a guide in the back, by month, of some of the regular can't-miss giant sales out there. We're talking several "World's Largests" and "100-Milers" here, all over the country.
Confession: I myself have never managed to host a garage sale, and God knows I have the stock for one. I feel so un-American. Maybe this summer.
*What that means is, I got a free copy of the book and a $20 Amazon gift certificate for reviewing it, in full disclosure.
 | Garage Sale America asin: 0061151653 |
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