Projo Offbeat Blog

Those of us lucky enough to live somewhere other than Cornville or Skowhegan will suffer through our own season of yard sales from now until Columbus Day.

You think traffic is bad when they close Route 95 for construction on weekday nights? Try leaving your neighborhood on a Saturday morning when two or more of your neighbors decide to hold yard sales. It would be easier to escape from the detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay. Just be grateful if the sales aren't so close that the bargain hunters are parking all over your lawn.

Anyone who has grown up around here is too familiar with yard sales, but the tradition can present a strange spectacle for people from across the Atlantic. My buddy Sully tells how his wife, Anne, a native of Ireland, was horrified when she witnessed her first yard sale. Seeing a family's possessions spread across its lawn, she thought she was witnessing an eviction.

She's still fascinated by this American custom of exhibiting some of our most personal possessions on our lawns, inviting strangers to pick through them and take them away for a few bucks or even a few cents.

I understand what she means. When I was a kid, we hosted a few garage sales. (Maybe I'm just bitter about parting with some of my old Hot Wheels for a few cents.) Some of our neighbors also held sales. For years my mother spoke with amazement about something one neighbor had put out for display.

She was trying to sell her old bras.