'Tis the Season for Yard Sales

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Created on Friday, 10 May 2013 13:59
Written by Joseph Peters

yardsalesLYNDON - With good weather and green grass comes the start of yard sale season, and early spring in the Northeast Kingdom is no different. As any good yard saler knows, April, May and June are the prime months for spectacular deals. Unfortunately, given the frigid weather for much of April, yard sale season got a late start this year. After the recent run of warm weather, though, yard sale season has hit its peak. "We make anywhere from two, three hundred dollars or so," said Blanche Gorham, an 96-year-old East Burke woman. She's been helping out with the East Burke Church's annual yard sale for the past ten years. "We have the bags," Gorham said, referring to a stack of large brown paper bags, "and [people] fill a bag for a dollar."

On May 3, a Friday there were at least a dozen yard sales being advertised.

"Fridays are the busiest days," said Debora Ogden, Sutton's town clerk and an avid yard saler. "And it's weird, because when you go to one yard sale and you pop to the next one, it's like you're following [the crowd]." Ogden also pointed out that not all yard sales are advertised. She said that often, if you just drive around the back roads of the Northeast Kingdom, you'll find a diamond in the rough.

"I wasn't even planning on yard saling today," Ogden said when we interviewed her at a yard sale on Back Center Road in Lyndon. "I just happened to drive by and see this one and stop because they have one every year."

The women in charge of that yard sale requested anonymity, but they claimed that their yard sale is unofficially "The Best Yard Sale in Lyndon," and there was a steady crowd of people outside for most of the day. That yard sale contained a variety of merchandise, from PlayStation 2 games to picture frames.

"Yard sales, to me, is buying other people's junk to add to your junk," Ogden said. "You can usually find anything you want or need."

For some, however, yard sales are more than just a way to pick up other people's junk. "We have one family," Gorham said, "and they were here today with probably... in all, they must've had about twenty bags of stuff. I think most people right now can't afford to shop in the stores. Everything's so expensive."