The Sound of Yard Sales

Started off an absolutely beautiful, even chilly morning with the American Top 40. This week was all about early June 1981, with a round of rock, soul, and the last vestiges of disco. Hits include "America" by Neil Diamond, "All Those Years Ago" by George Harrison, "Sukiyaki" by A Taste of Honey, "Just the Two of Us" by Bill Withers, and "Take It on the Run" by REO Speedwagon. REO Speedwagon had the week's top album, but the single that was dominating the charts in the spring of 1981 was the Kim Carnes classic "Bette Davis Eyes," which apparently had been #1 for at least three weeks prior.

Headed off to Collingswood around 9:30. I stopped at the Farm Market first before I went wandering around. There was a ridiculously long line at the first booth. I didn't find out why until I'd walked around a bit. Apparently, they were the only farm still selling strawberries. They also had snap peas and the first-of-the-season cherries. Zucchini just debuted, too. I bought snap peas, organic green lettuce from the organic booth (their small heads are so much easier to deal with and to eat than the huge ones sold by the other farms), scallions, mushrooms, and the much-sought-after cherries and strawberries. Yes, I had to stand in line. I'm just glad they had any left by the time I got up there.

Today was Collingswood's Town-Wide Yard Sale. I mostly rode around in the streets between Haddon Avenue and Cooper River Park, where I had my bike ride Thursday. While I didn't do quite as well as last year, I made a couple of really good finds.

The best ones came from a multi-family sale at what looked like an apartment building. A blanket was filled with vintage card and board games from the 70s and 80s. I picked up Deluxe Uno (I have Harry Potter Uno, which I got from Mom when I moved, but I'm not a real big Harry Potter fan) and a box of four different Strawberry Shortcake card and small board games, both in their boxes and with all their pieces. A wire shelf of DVDs yielded a set of 3 Rogers and Hammerstein movies, Oklahoma!, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. I already had Oklahoma!, but not the other two, and the set was still in its plastic (including Target sticker). I paid a mere $1.75 for all three and a small soft pretzel.

Other finds included another DVD (the John Candy solo vehicle Summer Rental), a video (the gangster-movie spoof Johnny Dangerously), a vintage book of Disney stories from the 50s and 60s called Walt Disney's Treasury, and three CDs:

Counting Crows - Films About Ghosts - The Best of....

Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell

Red Hot & Blue, a collection of contemporary artists singing Cole Porter standards

I stopped at one more yard sale on Eldridge Avenue near the high school and found nothing of interest before I headed home. I put everything away, then had Spring Seafood Pasta Salad on farm-market lettuce and a bowl of slightly-mushed strawberries for lunch while watching the Bowery Boys movie Jungle Gents and a couple of episodes of Garfield and Friends.

Work was very busy when I came in, and would remain so for most of the night. Not only is it a lovely weekend for a barbecue, but it's also the beginning of the month. Other than some mildly annoying people, I was in and out with no problems.