Saturday 1/24/09 - The return of the yards of clutter

I have returned to the yards of clutter after the longest break I have taken in the four years I have published this journal. Much has happened in that time, leadership has changed in the United States, the bottom has fallen out of the world’s economy and the weather has been usually cold, wet and dreadful for Atlanta. In the past two months I have been contacted twice by local news media wanting my views and opinions on yards sales and the current economic plunge. In truth there are less yard sales around here since the weather has been so dreary. But there appear to be plentiful sales outside the reach of my psychologically limited driving ability in suburban Atlanta.
This Saturday the weather was still not pleasant, a slight chill and some drizzling rain. But I did find two nearby sales.

Woodward Ave. – Turniptown “Yard Sale” ”


Here a man had crammed almost the full contents of his sale onto the tiny porch of a rehabbed shotgun house. The only things in the yard were a few ice chests and a pressure washer. He said the pressure washer sort of worked, it just had a short somewhere. He also told me that under current city rules one is allowed to pressure wash at least every other day. On the porch I found a box full of not so old Playboy magazines, a suitcase full remote controls for TVs the seller no longer owned, a cassette tape of the Late Deacon Lunchbox, a box of slang flashcards, a CD entitled Pure Disco, a chess set, a ceramic frog with an oversized male organ, a stack of lps from the 80’s and several empty microphone cases.
I bought nothing.












Playboys, Disco and slang on a man's porch.



















Well endowed frog.


















Clifton Ave. - Kirkwood “Yard Sale”

Here two women were late in setting up a sale on the porch of their frame bungalow. When I arrived an eager gaggle of buyers was rummaging through each box as the sellers brought them from inside the home. Here I found an electric chainsaw, a leather jacket, two small oars, a framed print of the Eiffel tower, a framed antique map of Ireland, some artificial flowers and bags and boxes of books. Among the books I found “Buy Your First Home Now”, “The 9/11 Commission report”, “The Secret History”, A Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable repair manual, “30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary”, “Steal This Computer Book”, “Pass Both Your Driving Tests” and two copies of Eliot’s Middlemarch.
I bought nothing.



Box of clutter.