Stuff Finds New Lease On Life

It's rumored that some people use garages to park cars in, but ours somehow got filled with accumulated stuff, at least until a recent garage sale. Much of it I had rescued from the curb, lest perfectly useful items end up in the landfill. Some items had needed minimal repairs, like a wobbly but unblemished kitchen table that only needed its legs tightened. Others, like a collection of bentwood chairs, I had mild ambitions to eventually recane, but finally sold to someone with a similar vision.

This plastic bin of assorted magician's equipment went through a several year's journey, from neighborhood curb to my basement, to my garage, to the yardsale, and finally back out to the curb again. During that time, I had learned that both Steve Martin and Johnny Carson began their careers learning magic tricks as kids. I had enough curiosity to keep the materials, but not enough to open the book, which got rained on the night after the yard sale. Someone finally took them after two days on the curb.

Though some stuff acquired at garage sales may simply relocate from one garage to another, other items were clearly going to be put to use, like the round table a neighbor passing by was so happy to buy because she had been wanting one for a certain spot in her house and the one I had rescued and put out for the sale was perfect!

And then there was the one that got away. I had retrieved a big, black metal frame meant to support a swinging chair, and had held on to it, wondering what sort of chair would fit on it. A woman spotted it among the freebies at the yardsale, told my daughter she had a chair for it, but then disappeared and didn't return to pick it up. The next day, having finally lost hope, I put it out on the curb, knowing it would be coveted by one of the scrap guys who ply Princeton's streets in well-aged pickup trucks. One showed up, and as he was lifting it into the truck, I asked him where he takes the stuff and how much he makes per load. He said he used to go to a scrapyard in Trenton, but now drives up to Hillsborough, where he typically makes $200 on a full load.

An hour after he drove off, the woman returned, wanting to take the frame. Two years it waited next to the garage for a chair to make it complete, impervious to the weather, it's gleaming finish and seeming potential intact, only to have its keeper give in to purging fever an hour too soon. More kind, in retrospect, would have been to have charged for it, so the woman could have made her interest more clear.

All in all, though, the morning was well spent, and my daughter was happy with both the hauling away and the haul that was made.