now i need a nutmeg

A warm sunny Saturday late summer morning. After my workout at the BAC I stopped at the annual block garage sales on Cadman. What a pitiful showing this year. All I found was a Christmas piano music book and a nutmeg grater. A dollar well spent. ;-).
But now I need a nutmeg to grate.



Driving back home I passed a sign for a garage sale on Oakgrove and decided to stop there too. I had a very pleasant conversation with a very pleasant man. Seems he was selling all the things that his wife had collected for years. He pointed out many of the items that he thought were pretty special. Ivory handled buttonhooks and lacy knitted baby layettes. Old glass bottles with glass stoppers. He said that people tell him that these things go for quite a lot on eBay. He said he wasn't very computer savy but his kids had just bought him an iPad. I told him I was jealous. He offered up that his wife had died and that he had a girlfriend. I asked if she had died of cancer. He said she had died on the ski slopes in Colorado while on a trip with girlfriends. Heart attack. We talked about raising children in the village and about how both of us were the middle child in a family of three children. I looked through the old dresses. He said I was about the size of his wife and maybe these would fit me. I could see that his wife had been a very tiny woman and these dresses would not fit me. They had labels like Gay Gibson. He said make an offer.



He pointed out his 1947 Ford that was hiding in the back of the garage under piles of stuff.



I asked if I could take a picture of it. I told him I had $7 worth of stuff to buy and he said to just give him $5. He said that he didn't advertise. If he had he could have had a lot more people at the sale. He said he wasn't trying to make money...just get rid of some stuff. He would pull the garage door down and just leave it for another time. He said the day was beautiful and shouldn't be wasted inside. The fire siren went off and he remarked that it wasn't to mark noon because it was still a little early for that. I agreed and told him to have a good day. I felt a human connection with this man. A good feeling.