Garage Sale Season Winding Down

Thu., Oct. 26, 1995

By Jonathan Martin jonathanm@spokesman.com

As Paul and Bertie Hein picked through boxes of tarnished silver spoons, their breath, chilled by last weekend’s 40-degree weather, billowed in clouds.

“This is about the end of the garage sale season,” said Paul Hein. “We kind of go into mourning.”

Self-professed garage sale junkies, the Heins were not dissuaded by ski weather in the air, good football on the TV or pumpkin carving in the living room.

Hitting a pair of season-ending garage sales on the Five Mile prairie Sunday, the Heins made off with a dry-write board, dried flowers and measuring cups.

They said garage sales helped them keep their six now-grown kids clothed. Their 21-year-old daughter has picked up the bug. She bought her wedding dress at a garage sale.

“Don’t know what we would have done without garage sales,” said Bertie.

Priscilla Avey put off having her sale until her garage was finished. The carpenter said July 4. Sunday, the only sparks flying were from a portable heater underneath the chairs occupied by Avey and her sister Penny Landfried.

“What a good way to spend your birthday,” said Landfried, wearing gloves, wool-lined boots and throwing a blanket over her legs on her 48th birthday.

Regardless of the weather, the shopping was good. Over two days, Avey sold antique pitchers, phones and a “sleepy fisherman’s alarm” - a beeper attached to a fishing pole when the line is jerked.

“Most people’s junk is other people’s treasures,” said William Crittenden, Avey’s competition a mile north on Five Mile Road.

Among the “junk” strewn on Crittenden’s driveway: a tennis- or baseball-pitching machine, a Coleco video game complete with a Star Wars arcade game and a steering wheel attachment for race car games, a box of electrical wiring, a New Kids on the Block “Hanging Tough” video and an Iver Johnson single-shot .22 calibre rifle.

Crittenden also had potatoes, tomatoes, walnuts, brussel spouts, carrots and pumpkins for sale. The tomatoes went for 25 cents a pound.

Anything not sold, Crittenden said, would be donated to the state Commission for the Blind. “Hey, it helps me clean out my garage,” said Crittenden.

, DataTimes

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