Afternoon in the country

I do tend to become preoccupied with garage sales a lot and over the weekend I did a story for the city page about them! It was about a giant garage sale on our legendary Route 16.

In a way I liked doing this story. I like the deadline aspect of newspaper writing. When I review a concert I have about a half an hour, usually, to write what I do. It might not be perfect but the challenge is to do the best you can. When the time is up, it is up. That is the game!

Saturday it was like "Beat the Clock." The stopwatch starts ticking whenever it was I got to the sale on Route 16, which was about 11 a.m. I had till 5 p.m. to get the story all wrapped up. Originally they told me 4 p.m. but I stretched it till 5.

It really does strike me like a game. I drove out there by myself. When I got to the county line I was meeting up with my friend Lizzie. But even before that, I had to stop. I saw a garage sale, which I imagined to be the first in the long chain, before I crossed into Cattaraugus County. And I just had to stop.

I could not wait!

I was in the car brushing my hair and getting my notebook ready and I just could not wait to go play. You just never know what you will find, who will say what. And I was all happy and excited to get going.

Even though I was getting over this bug and was all Nyquil-ed up, I still could not wait.

Was the story perfect when I wrapped it up at 5? No. Will it change the world? No. But it was a damn good story if I say so myself. The best part was these Asian students who told me that back home in South Korea and Taiwan, people do not buy used stuff. I like to give people who read the story something to chew on and that is what you can take and chew on after this story. Now we all know that in South Korea they do not buy used stuff. That is interesting!

And fine by me. More Leonard Pennario records for the rest of us!

The only thing that bugged me about the whole thing was I did not get to do much shopping. There were two boxes of records at one sale and I looked through those -- nothing interesting. And I did manage to buy something for Howard. It is a book he loves. It is "The Reader's Digest Guide To Fixing Appliances."

I paid 50 cents for that before interviewing the woman running the sale.

I am glad I have a souvenir of this adventure!