Yard sale brings in more than just money

Story and photo by Nicole Morales
The Portland Upside
September 2009

What’s more popular than barbecues, inflatable kiddie pools, and picnics in the park?

Yard sales!

Also known as garage sales. Or moving sales when one wants to lighten the load before a move.

When you’re the buyer, any of the three does just fine. It’s the deal you’re after. You gather some spare cash, set aside some time, and call up your buddy who can spot a bargain from the passenger’s side window. Off you go!

On the vendor’s side, though, things get a bit more complicated. You ask yourself, should it be on Friday, Saturday or Sunday or some combination? Are mornings better than afternoons, a whole day or just half? Maybe my neighbors would like to join in for a multifamily sale?

Then there’s the gathering and organizing of stuff—furniture, books, linens; pricing everything and moving it all onto the driveway or yard; and positioning the booty for best marketing success.

And don’t forget about the signage. They’ve got to be visible, eye-catching, and able to withstand the elements, whether morning drizzle or afternoon breezes.

These are the steps I took with my moving sale a few weeks ago in the hopes of unloading accumulated stuff and procuring some cash. But I underestimated one essential element—getting to know people.

Amid the maze of gently used furniture and shoebox transactions, I encounter many faces in search of a deal. Some are more than happy to chit-chat about the weather or their day, and even tell me a little something about themselves.

There’s the early bird fellow. He pulls up before eight o’clock, noticeably happy to be our first potential customer.

“Good Morning!”

He’s wide-eyed and groggy-free, unlike me.

“Morning,” I say as I sip my coffee.

There’s a spring to his step even though a propane barbecue and rusty metal parts weigh down his pickup.

“I see you got an early start,” I say pointing to his truck.

“Nah! I haul scrap metal,” he replies, eyeing my kaput lawn mower at the curb.

“What’s wrong with your mower?” he asks.

“It’s seen better days.” I say, “Not sure if it’ll start up again, so it’s free for the taking.”

“I’ll haul it off for you,” he says.

“Deal.”

Now I don’t have to persuade my friend with the hatchback to add it to his growing pile of junk.

Then there’s the woman brave enough to dig through my big brown box of clothing. She has plenty of questions. How much for this, that, these, and those? Intent on capturing a bargain, she resurfaces with a coat in one hand and scarf in the other. Quite a steal for five dollars.

Her next stop is the jewelry display on the card-table-turned-checkout-counter. Her free hand holds up a pair of dangly earrings to the sun. She then examines a Persian-blue furry brooch marked two dollars. That’s when her ring catches my eye.

“That’s beautiful. Amethyst?” I ask.

“Thanks,” she says. “Actually, I’ll trade it for this brooch.” She pauses a moment to glance at the back of her hand, the ring catching the sunlight.

“Really?” I ask, surprised by her offer. It’s an obviously uneven trade.

“Really. It’s not worth so much,” she tells me.

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” I say.

Unfortunately the ring happens to be too big for any of my fingers. I sell it less than an hour later.

A few sales later, I exchange unlikely stories with another man. He tells me he lives a few blocks down and helped to build the new elementary school on Lincoln Street. Some way or another our chit-chat turns from local to tropical.

“Real estate is booming in Costa Rica, but I’m set on Hawaii. That’s where my daughter recently married,” he explains.

“Sounds fantastic!” I say. “Haven’t been, but my boyfriend and I celebrated a birthday in Jamaica in ‘08.”

We chat for another fifteen minutes or so about sand, sun and fruity beverages. He leaves empty-handed. But I don’t mind, I’m heady with memories of a day spent on a secluded beach east of Montego Bay.

By three o’clock there are few lookers and even fewer buyers. With some cash settled in the shoebox, I decide to give my merchandise another hour to sell. What better excuse to finish the final chapters in my overdue library book?

That’s when the royal blue bicycle pulls up, a nostalgic cruiser I’d seen glide past earlier. Perhaps he’ll be my last customer and bring my bank up to an even one hundred and twenty five dollars.
Then I can call it quits.

Quite the contrary, I soon discover. His name is Angel Romero Peña.

“Nice bike,” I say.

“Thank you. I got it for free at the thrift store,” he tells me.

Our conversation evolves from there, a near two-hour exchange during which Angel recounts childhood stories and experiences living here in his adopted country.

“I left Havana, Cuba, on a raft with ten people on August 22, 1994. The mother ship picked us up four days later,” he explains.

“Mother ship? You were rescued?” I ask.

“The United States Coast Guard rescued us,” he replies.

“Wow! What a story, Angel.”

The US Coast Guard returned Angel and his sea mates to Cuba. But they didn’t return to the capital. They were taken to the other side of the island, Guantánamo Bay. He worked in a warehouse for four hundred and ten days before arriving in the United States the following year.

“So you weren’t a prisoner… a detainee?” I try to clarify.

“No, a refugee.”

Unreal. Here’s a man in slacks and a button-up shirt who rides up on a retro single-speed cruiser complete with white seat, looks over the three dollar ironing board and considers the ten dollar Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner. He walks up to the checkout table and easily engages me in dialogue about his bicycle, his family, and how he landed— literally—in this country.

“You want to see a picture of my daughter?” he asks.

“You two have the same smile,” I say.

Angel looks proud. He pauses, “I used to play marbles when I was a child, and I always beat the other kids.”

Turns out he’s a good chess player, a contender at dominoes, and can swing a baseball bat like a pro. All things he excelled at in Cuba. He studied as an industrial mechanic back home, and has held a handful of jobs in this country, though none in his field of expertise. Through his stories I glean that Angel has had a difficult life and many misfortunes, yet he is content, happy to share what most people consider too much information for a first encounter.

I finally ask, “What keeps you happy?

He mentions his late mother and says, “My mother told me to stay away from funerals and not to visit cemeteries.”

I laugh. “She couldn’t be any more right than that, Angel.”

I start to pack up my unsold goods while Angel goes on talking. I haven’t made a fortune, but I am richer for the stories. Not a bad way to leave a neighborhood I used to call home.

_____

Nicole Morales strives to connect people via multicultural education and writing. She teaches ESL at a private university outside of Portland and welcomes your inquiries at nmorales.writes@gmail.com