I am now in the “Passions” business.

It all started when the new soap opera “Passions”‘ decided a few years ago to film in the prettiest town in Maine, also known as Camden. The film crew developed prop signs to change Camden into Harmony for the opening shots.

There was a 7-foot wooden “Welcome to Harmony” sign along with a large “Harmony Hospital” sign. There were smaller signs for the Book Cafe, Free Clinic, Lobster Shack parking, Harmony Municipal Building, Harmony Country Club and a huge, fake granite sign for Harmony High School.

The film crew also made a 12-by-12-foot banner advertising Fourth of July fireworks.

The production company planned to come back to film winter scenes and needed a place to store the signs. A very large former tenant at Cobb Manor happened to be in the film crew and offered the manor barn for $50 a month. When the tenant left for greener, waterfront pastures, I decided to raise the barn rent to $100 month, being retired and all.

The “Passions” production office called from California to tell me that I now owned the signs, thank you very much.

My first idea was to put a few of the signs on the front lawn just to see what would happen. I thought the Free Clinic sign would bring in some interesting visitors. Maybe change the signs once a month. Be a high school for a while, then a hospital, just to see what happened. Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed.

The whole family isn’t as dumb as I am. As I started planning to take the sign assortment to the local recycling center, nee dump, my intelligent daughter Aran suggested offering them for sale on eBay.

For the uninitiated, eBay is an electronic yard sale where you can buy anything from a car to vintage books. Even signs from soap operas. Somehow, people bid on the items on the Internet.

“Those people will buy anything,” Aran said. She even found an eBay section just for the soap opera. (It takes all kinds.) Aran, God love her, even had an eBay account. That would have been too much for me to conquer.

After solving the mysteries of digital photography (it’s all magic to me), the nine signs were posted on eBay along with the digital photos of me holding the signs or pointing to them.

Naturally, I checked every morning to see how my new “Passions” business was going. So far, there is one $10 preliminary bid and the country club sign has sold for $25. Thank God, that was a small, 1-pound sign that can be sent through the mail for $5. I have no idea what I will do if someone from California wants the 7-foot wooden Harmony High sign. I will sell it for $25, but shipping might be $1,000.

I have had several e-mail inquiries. One woman told me I had great legs. She will get a major discount.

Now I am sitting back waiting for the bids to roll in. I am now looking around the house to see what else I can sell on eBay.

A barn full of junk left by 18 years of tenants. An unused exercise bike. Boxes of books. Old rugs. An alarming amount of mattresses. Vintage skis from the 1950s. A gaudy cufflink thrown by soul singer James Brown which struck me in the chest during a 1970s concert.

This could be a whole new career.

Don’t just sit there.

Bid.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.