THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 24, 1994 TAG: 9406230147
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: JO-ANN CLEGG
DATELINE: 940624 LENGTH: Medium
We held a garage sale.
{REST} It was the usual Astor Court production.
Wives screamed at husbands. Husbands screamed at wives. Everybody screamed at the kids - their own and the neighbors. And we all exchanged our junk for somebody else's.
All in all, things went off as planned.
By the end of the day Bill and I had divested ourselves of half a garage full of unneeded, outdated, outmoded or outgrown stuff and added a few much needed bucks to our coffers.
We had also swapped a few stories with the neighbors and shared their awe at what garage salers would buy and how they managed to get their finds home.
``I just sold the thing that I thought absolutely no one would buy,'' Suzanne, wife of Borrowing George, said in wide-eyed amazement.
``What was that?'' I asked.
``The kitchen sink,'' she said, pointing to a well dressed woman who was carefully stowing the 3-foot-long pieces of slightly discolored stainless steel in the trunk of her Volvo.
``And it's only 8:15,'' Suzanne said triumphantly.
All of us had gone into the sale hoping not so much to make money as to clear some room in our groaning attics and bulging garages.
For me, that meant getting rid of three bed spreads, six pairs of drapes, a very large dog cage and three porch chairs with a combined weight of about 150 pounds.
The sink in the Volvo was just the first of the strange loads which left our court during the course of the hot, steamy day.
Charlie's cage filled the back of a very small camper. A bicycle with training wheels left in the soft lap of an accommodating grandmother. The eyes and nose of a very small baby peered out from a safety seat covered with draperies.
As it turned out, some friends driving a compact sedan with three kids in the back seat came by and bought two of our chairs.
``We'll be back with the truck,'' they yelled as they peeled out of the court on their way to what they had heard was an excellent sale a few blocks away.
A couple of hours later they returned. In the back of their pickup were two overstuffed chairs, a sofa, three end tables and a TV.
Bill loaded the lawn chairs and, in true deck officer fashion, lashed down the TV set and all of the cushions.
``You can't have those flying around,'' he cautioned. ``They sure can cause a problem if they get loose.''
He was speaking from experience. Never do we pass a truckload of household goods without recalling the time we were almost done in by flying foam rubber.
Coming from the commissary at Oceana one hot Saturday morning we rounded a curve on London Bridge Road just in time to see a queen size mattress take off from the top of a camper going in the opposite direction.
In a hail of flying dust and screeching brakes it came to rest a few seconds later, wrapped twice around the left front wheel of our station wagon.
It was followed by a large blond with an ever larger voice. ``I told him he didn't have that tied down right,'' she yelled just as her chief petty officer husband jumped out of a second vehicle and came running to assess the damage.
He was not alone. London Bridge Road became a parking lot with what seemed like every Navy seaman, chief, commander and captain in Virginia Beach gathered around to offer suggestions for untangling the mattress.
Some pushed. Some tugged. Some searched their vehicles for tools that might help. Most, in true Navy fashion, just barked orders at each other.
Eventually, just ahead of the arrival of a couple of Virginia Beach police officers and the Shore Patrol, the car and the mattress uncoupled. All hands moved in on the scene to inspect the damage.
The car was fine. The mattress, against all odds, was still intact, none the worse for the wear except for a distinct set of tire tracks running fore and aft.
After a chorus of ``I'll be darneds'' (or words to that effect) everybody climbed back in their vehicles and dispersed. In the distance the blond could be heard still yelling at her hapless husband.
``Boy,'' Bill said, as we drove off, ``can't you just imagine what'll happen the next time they have a party?''
``What's that?'' I asked.
``They'll just take everybody in the bedroom, peel back the sheets, point to the tire tracks and tell some kind of sea story you wouldn't believe.'' by CNB