Stopped to pump my tires really fast, then headed out to enjoy the Haddon Township Town-Wide Yard Sale. Though we're technically in Oaklyn, the first sale I found was less than a block from where I am. The man had boxes of records in the back of his driveway, many of them new or nearly-new. I ended up buying five for $10 before moving on.
Found nothing else in my immediate area, so I moved on to the Collingswood Farm Market. It opened last weekend, but I worked early and couldn't get there. They were mobbed with people looking for produce for their Mother's Day dinners and food gifts for Mom. I was surprised to encounter apples at the apple orchard seller. I don't usually see apples until late summer. Otherwise, it was mainly strawberries, green beans, radishes, and asparagus. I bought a pint of early strawberries and a soft whole wheat pretzel ring for a treat and moved on.
Spent the next two hours roaming around Westmont and the Bluebird neighborhood between Collingswood and Cuthbert Road looking for yard sales. And oh boy, did I find yard sales! There were yard sales on every street, sometimes three or four on a block. I had an easier time getting around in Westmont than in the Bluebird neighborhood, which was crawling with cars and kids on bikes looking for bargains. And no wonder everyone was out and about. It was a gorgeous day for riding around, sunny, blustery, and blue, probably in the mid-60's.
The only place I had no luck was a booth in the Bluebird neighborhood. A grandmother was selling off her CD collection, but someone told her CDs were making a comeback. She wanted way too much money for used copies of Fosse and The Book of Mormon. For the price she asked, I could buy them new, or at least get them in better shape at one of the used record stores. I passed.
Otherwise, I really hit the jackpot. This was the best I've done with a yard sale run in at least five or six years, maybe longer. Now I'm glad I asked for today off so I could enjoy at least one town-wide-yard-sale day. I came up with nine records, four CDs, and three books. The records are:
Benny Goodman and His Orchestra - All Time Greatest Hits (2-disc set)
Frank Sinatra - A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra
Stan Kenton - Back to Balboa
Ray Conniff and His Orchestra - S'Marvelous
The soundtrack from the wacky 1983 rock spoof Get Crazy
Blues, a collection of songs from blues artists of the 1950's and 60's
Modern New Orleans Masters, a more recent blues collection from 1988.
Count Basie and His Orchestra - The Best of Basie Vol. 2
The Modern Jazz Quartet - The Modern Jazz Quartet Plays for Lovers
(Incidentally, those last five are the ones that came from the house on the next block over from me.)
The CDs are:
Live at the World Cafe - Volume 25: Quarter Notes (Found this one still sealed in a pile of free items on a sheet in front of a house!)
Dean Martin - Dino: The Essential Dean Martin
Two Time-Life classic rock collections from the same estate sale as the Dean Martin CD, both sealed:
AM Gold - The 60's Generation
AM Gold - 1968
The books are:
Stuart Little, by E.B White
Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle
Treasure Island, by Robert Lewis Stevenson
Had lunch at Reunion Hall, a recently-opened bar in Westmont. It calls itself a "multi-concept restaurant/bar," but it looks like your average upscale bar to me, with a lot of heavy wooden tables and skinny metal chairs. I don't know how long they're going to last in bar-laden Westmont. I ended up at the bar with a Diet Coke and water. Their skin-on fries weren't bad, but the cheeseburger was terrible. It was plainly a puck with basic American cheese added. They didn't even have any lettuce or tomatoes. I guess those are extra. It definitely should have at least come with the fries for the price I paid.
Primo's Water Ice further down Haddon Avenue was much better. This local ice cream chain carries unique ice cream and water ice flavors and is wildly popular with Westmont kids on their way home from school or sports. In fact, I passed a girl in a Little League softball uniform and her mother enjoying their treats as I went in to get mine. I ended up with a kids' sized cup of Churro water ice. Yum. Sweet and creamy, with just a hint of cinnamon.
I didn't have much cash left after I had my water ice, so I headed for home. Cuthbert Road was busy even for them on a Saturday. I couldn't figure out why as I dodged traffic until I passed the Haddon Township High School. From what I could see, they were having a huge track meet with the Cherry Hill High Schools. The high school grounds were packed. I actually took Haddon Avenue and the back roads home, since I figured the kids would be practicing and running in the park.
After I got home, I changed and went straight into the 1993 Bette Midler Gypsy on Amazon Prime for Mother's Day. I go further into this TV retelling of the beloved Broadway show at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.
Took an early shower, then worked on writing for a while. Kathleen is surprised to to see how green and beautiful everything is in the tree. She's even more surprised to encounter a lovely older woman who calls herself Mother Nature and seems to know the rabbit intimately...
Finished the night with dinner and tonight's Match Game Classics marathon. Oscar-winner Patty Duke was possibly the most famous star to appear on Match Game during its 70's-early 80's heyday. She began in early 1975 and would continue as a semi-regular through the end of the syndicated run in 1982. Though she could sometimes seem a little lethargic, due to her ongoing battle with bipolar disorder, she generally seemed to have a lot of fun and was one of the more enjoyable ladies to sit in the fourth seat.
She really loved the time Gene let her read a question in 1977. She got so into it, I'm surprised Gene never let her do something like that again. She saw Charles be the only one to get the Audience Match "Kris __" right in 1976 and was around for the PM episode where Richard gave the winner a huge kiss, only for Gene to try to yank her back. Rich pulled at her arm, and it ended up in a tug of war until she pulled away, claiming that her arms were now longer than they were when she came!
Patty was one of the few women to sit in all three seats. Though she was usually in the fourth "ingenue" seat in the 70's, by 1979, she'd graduated to the sixth "comedienne" seat. She was on that goofy week in '79 with Bert Convy, Robert Walden, and Audrey Landers. She encouraged Charlene Tilton to show off her barely-there dress in 1980 and protested short jokes when she, Bill Daily, and Charlene weren't exactly tall. She got a brief chance to sit in Brett's seat when she was out doing a play in 1981. A man struck out with "The Royal ___" in the Audience Match later that year by taking his own answer that made a lot less sense than the panelists'.
It's double your pleasure, double your comedy with both sides of this much-loved award winner!
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