Yard sales aid Calais cleanup

CALAIS – It began Saturday morning with a map.

The Calais Lioness yard sale map, that is, which could be picked up for a $1 donation. The proceeds would benefit the Lioness Scholarship Fund.

That little map turned into a treasure trove – or rather, one woman’s junk became another woman’s treasure.

You see, I’m hooked on yard sales. There is something exciting about the musty smell of stuff left behind in an attic or basement that again sees the light of day at a yard sale.

And there is pure pleasure in picking up hundreds of items to look at and the wonderful feeling of old dust settling into the pores of your hands.

Allan Gray, my friend from New Brunswick, and I began Saturday morning, map in hand. It was the kickoff of a weeklong Community Pride Summit in Calais.

It began two years ago when the City Council, looking for ways to keep a lid on the budget while still providing for community services, devised the community pride idea.

Yard sales became a part of that effort. The idea – sell it out of your yard, rather than put it in the city landfill.

Most yard sale junkies begin at 7 a.m.; I started at 9 a.m.

The first stop: the St. Croix No. 1 Firehouse on Church Street. For the past couple of years, volunteers have been working hard to turn the dilapidated former fire station into a museum and civic center.

And what a gold mine – or better yet, copper mine – its yard sale turned out to be.

The first thing I spotted among the tables and tables of life’s keepsakes was a bird feeder that had the lustrous color of aged copper and looked like two cymbals hooked together by wire. That thumping sound I heard was the rapid beating of my heart. I was off and running.

On the next table there was a video of “An Affair to Remember.” When I first saw it way too many years ago, I fell in love with the spark that crackled between Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Truth be told, it’s one of my all-time favorite double-hanky films.

Boy, I was hooked. I clutched the tape, bird feeder and other items to my chest for fear someone would grab them out of my hands, and I sauntered up to the cash register, eager to pay for my treasures.

Dickey Barnard was there. He has been the motor behind the restoration project. One of the fun things about group yard sales is you’re never certain who donated the item. So I held up the tape for everyone to see and accused Dickey of being a closet romantic.

Dickey, never one to turn aside a joke, confessed the tape was his.

But protests could be heard from across the room. City Manager Linda Pagels, who looked a little frayed around the edges after helping put together a donated wooden bed, admitted the tape came from her library. Hmm, I thought, this offered new insight into the pint-sized manager’s life.

The total cost of my transaction: $2.

Allan and I bid the fire hall crew adieu and headed for Main Street and the Neighbors Against Drug Abuse yard sale. The first floor of their building was filled with everything from household items to furniture and antiques.

NADA member Helen Adams was there. I picked up dishes and studied the markings on their bottoms. But it was my friend Allan who spied the wooden rocking horse – dare I say, an antique? – sitting in a corner on the floor

After a bit of head scratching and some soul-searching, I decided it would make a spectacular plant stand.

And Helen, who has a heart as big as the yard sale she was helping to run, threw in a second rocking horse. I could barely confine myself to the floor. A rocking horse under each arm, we were off to Monroe Street and the yard sale in the vacant lot next to the St. Croix Valley Antiques and Collectibles.

We couldn’t find anything outside, so inside we went to find wonderful antiques and crazy collectibles and, of course, Nellie – who’s always there to run the store.

Allan found a small front-seat, wood-style school desk with black cast-iron legs. He also found an oak chair that complemented the desk. That little find will end up in the alcove of his home.

The map then pointed us in the direction of the Calais Methodist Church where I picked up a modern-day graham cracker pie.

With our car full to the headliner, we called it a day.

By the way, cleanup week continues through Saturday, so be a volunteer. Hold your own yard sale or volunteer to help paint a downtown storefront or adopt a street to clean up.