We Gather Together to Pawn Our Crap Unto Others...

Normally, the last Saturday of September is Hulmeville Day - a three town wide flea market where you can buy everything from children's clothing to military grade civilian vehicles.  But, as we're currently still experiencing a slow motion monsoon, it's been pushed back into October, which suits me fine, as we're still checking the "to-be-sold" piles for mildew and water damage.

There's also a looming "problem" to our yearly undertaking - the "our" here being the family McGovern as opposed to the town at large - namely, we're running out of crap.   It's been five years of heavy lifting, but we're damn near out of furniture, the book selection has gone from twenty crates of books (per year) to ten (beginning last year).  Most of the tech got sold off last year to strange people in white vans who had a lot of twenties and flannel.  Most of the clothing goes to the shelters.

Still, though, that's our look out.

There's still the normal insanity of "things lodged under the couch since 1974," humidifiers shaped like the ranch from "Dallas", decommissioned jeeps from the Korean war that still have the bracers for mounted ordinance, and sword canes (yes, I bought one, don't act like you wouldn't have done the same).  There's miniature ponies walking around firehouses, and the smell of bar-b-q everywhere (even in the port-a-johns...which is an interesting experience that I won't go into further).

It has become a minor fixture for folks across bucks county, parts of middle-south Jersey.  It clogs the streets of the town, rips the carefully manicured lawns of suburbia, and pastes the rest with tables and blankets and shit that hasn't seen any sort of light since the first Regan administration.

There's more to this than bargain hunting.  If there wasn't, I don't think it would be nearly as large as it has become.  Part of it, I suppose, is the normal suburban habit of knowing people two houses down and that's really it - the porch lights go on, maybe they see the others in church or passing by during power-walks/jogs/bike-rides.  Now, though, we get to see them, and see what they've had buried in their basements and attics.  It supplies both the need for gossip and the need for community, working like a block party/Spring cleaning.

So we deal with the questions about what is and isn't for sale, hagglers, and that one neighbor dressed in army fatigues that smell like Schnapps.

Which, on the whole, is better than how I normally spend my Saturday mornings.