A Few Ruminations on Rummage

I think Strongbad explained it nicely when he had this to say about garage sales:

“Lemme tell you a thing or two about garage sales: Ya ever get the feeling that
the people just got lazy taking the trash out, so they stopped right there on
the driveway and started putting price tags on things? I mean, isn’t it just a
little suspicious that there’s only a one-letter difference between “garage
sale” and “garbage sale”? Except, don’t ever say “garbahge” like that. That’s,
like, the only joke mom’s have and they can keep it for all I
care.”
—Strongbad email Garage Sale, www.homestarrunner.com

Today was a fine day for garage sales here in Indiana (or maybe I should say garbage sales). The sun has been out, it’s been a breezy 80ish degrees, and the corn and soybean fields have ripened to a golden yellow. The summer is ending, harvest time is approaching, and houses that have been filled with a lifetime of clutter are ready to be cleaned out. But what’s the fun in just taking out the trash when you can throw it all on your front lawn and sell it to people?

An interesting phenomena occurs in our favorite little town of Matthews, Indiana every September. It’s called the Covered Bridge Festival. Now, there’s really nothing too interesting about a festival celebrating a covered bridge because I’ve heard they happen frequently in these parts wherever a usable covered bridge happens to be still standing. But the Matthews Covered Bridge Festival tends to bring out a certain thrifty side of its small-town residents.

The road we take from Muncie to get to Matthews is called Wheeling Pike. It’s a narrow country road surrounded by corn and soybean fields with the occasional sprinkling of farmhouses. As we drove this morning to the Covered Bridge Festival, we passed an exorbitant amount of rummage sales (a.k.a. garage sales, for you westerners), and their number only increased the closer we got to Matthews. You see, the Covered Bridge Festival is the optimal time to pull out your clutter and stick it on the lawn, especially for those who are more economically minded, because heck – if you’re going to invite all of East Central Indiana to your covered bridge festival, you might as well try to unload your junk and make a little profit while you’re at it!

Almost every resident of Matthews has a rummage sale in their front yard on the Saturday of the Festival. The more eager folks actually rent tent space on the main drag, Massachusetts Street, to set up shop. Those who spend their day shopping and sifting among the rummage of others instead of manning their own sales like to drive around town on golf carts and 4-wheelers, slowing in front of the potentially better sales and speeding up past the dinky ones. (It’s amazing how fast a little golf cart can actually drive. And it’s even more amazing that so many inhabitants of a golf-course-less community own golf carts.) And then there are the few old men who hook up their tractors to make-shift flatbed wagons to give visitors tours of the rummage sales.

Blake and I stopped at a few of the larger sales on Massachusetts Street. At one booth we were given the opportunity to purchase a home dental kit, which consisted of the actual tools used by dentists all rubberbanded together in one convenient clump. In that same booth, we could have bought rusted drill bits and barbers shears as well. At another stop a few doors down, one particularly determined salesman tried to interest us in an antique sewing machine (circa 1916) that still worked and came the original and complete set of accessories. It was a pretty cool sewing machine, and if I had the space to keep it and $125 to readily dole out, I might have bought it. As it is, though, we only came away from the booths with six little gourds that cost a dollar altogether. (They are now sitting nicely on our bookshelf, heralding in the autumn.)

I learned a few things today at the rummage sales. First, and probably foremost, I learned that I am not a good rummage saler. The closer I inspect another man’s treasure, the more I question its history, which is probably very likely quite disgusting. I also learned, and rather quickly, that shopping at rummage sales wears me out. Oh well. It’s not like I need someone else’s clutter living in my house.