THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 20, 1996 TAG: 9609190169
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Over Easy
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: 74 lines
The fact that my friend Geri has retired and is moving to Minneapolis is something I'd rather not think about.
For 15 years we've gone to the same meetings and parties, worked in the same area, completed the same graduate program and swapped a whole lot of stories.
Many of them several times over. But, hey, a good story bears repeating, right?
During the course of our story swapping we discovered that we knew many of the same people and that our paths probably first crossed when we were teen-agers.
In one of those isn't-it-a-small-world coincidences, it turned out that Geri's aunt and uncle lived just a few houses away from where my family lived when I was in high school, that she often visited them and that her cousins and I had gone to school together.
The more we talked over the years, the more we discovered that we had in common. And the more I appreciated Geri's ability to tell stories and to listen to them.
Sometimes I've bounced story ideas off her before I got around to writing them. More often she's been a source of great column material for me, a sort of roving reporter on the mature humor beat.
Her most recent contribution was a minute-by-minute description of the couple of hours she spent in line waiting to buy her city sticker back in February. She told me the story, I wrote it and 15 people who saw it called to tell me of their own experiences in other sticker lines.
That's what I call a successful story, the kind that people relate to and the kind I could always count on Geri to provide.
``I'm really going to miss you a lot,'' I told her when she broke the news about her departure.
We discussed old times for awhile, then talk turned to the nuts and bolts of her move.
``Have you put your house on the market yet?'' I asked.
``Oh, I didn't have to,'' she told me. ``It sold in my garage sale.'' Not too much stops me short any more, but that statement did.
``What did you do, run a garage sale ad in the classifieds that said `Antiques, dishes, appliances and three-bedroom, two-bath house?' '' I asked.
``No, we ran the usual kind of ad, put up a few signs and set the stuff out in the driveway,'' Geri explained. ``Then one of my neighbors showed up in the first batch of shoppers and asked if I was moving. I told her that I was, but I had to sell the house first. She said she had a family member who might be interested and things just kind of started perking from there on in.''
I looked at her blankly.
I currently know three people who have had their homes on the market for more than six months. They've placed newspaper ads, run pictures of their houses in all the home sales magazines and put little boxes out front with stacks of house information sheets in them.
One keeps a dozen fully inflated balloons flying from her mail box and has a tape recording set up that tells prospective buyers (and nosy neighbors) everything from how gorgeous the dining room chandelier is to what kind of financing is available.
Not one of them has even had a serious nibble.
Geri runs a 1-inch garage sale ad, puts up a few homemade signs and by the time the sale is over she's sold 53 books, 22 pieces of Tupperware, a dozen pairs of curtains, seven lawn chairs, two toasters, an antique plant stand and a three-bedroom ranch with a swimming pool.
It's enough to make those other three homeowners cry.
A bunch of us got together to bid Geri farewell the other day. We made her promise to call and write often.
We also asked her what she intended to do in her retirement. She said she thought she'd read a lot, find some challenging volunteer work and maybe do a little training or consulting.
I suggested she might want to write a magazine article about how to sell a house at a garage sale. She said she guessed she'd leave that to me, but she'd be glad to provide the background information just like she always has.
I sure am going to miss that woman. by CNB