15-mile-long yard sale expected to go on despite chill in forecast

CORNVILLE – The forecast calls for cool, wet weather, but organizers of what has become a 15-mile-long yard sale know that hundreds of cars will be clogging West Ridge Road during this weekend’s big event.

“You can buy a car, you can buy a house, you can buy a snowmobile, dogs, cats,” Sandra Goodell said. “You name it, we have it.”

Bargain hunters at the giant yard sale that just keeps getting bigger come from near and far.

Anita Wentworth receives friends from Vermont, who bring a truckload of furniture and other items to her home. Wentworth’s daughter, Wendy Wentworth-Morre, brings items from her New Hampshire home.

“It’s yard sale time again. They’ll be knocking on our doors at 6, let me tell you, if the sun’s shining,” said Wentworth. “They’ll even help you take your tarp off.”

The event, timed for the second weekend in May, dates back to 1983, when Donna and Tom Hendricks of Cornville held a yard sale. Some neighbors got into the act the next year. For several years after that, the late Carolyn Perkins and Evelyn Demmons ran the show.

This year’s sale will stretch two miles beyond West Ridge Road onto Route 43 near the Madison town line, and the other way into Athens. Portable toilets will be available at locations along the yard sale route.

Each participating homeowner kicks in $3 toward advertisements that are placed in as many as 15 newspapers.

Goodell is preparing 10 pounds of baked beans for her yard sale, and will have hot dogs and beverages. Wentworth plans to offer more than 300 perennials at $2 apiece. Janet Bernard, owner of Nelson’s Candies, will sell off her stock of candy at reduced prices.

“Sometimes I get 50 or 60 [customers] at a time,” Goodell said. “They’re lined up. Last year was the busiest. I couldn’t go to the bathroom all day.”

Traffic along West Ridge Road will be slow-moving through the weekend, and Wentworth advises people to travel before 10 a.m. or access the road from Route 150.

“The selectmen never give us a hard time about the traffic because a lot of people pay their taxes with this money,” she said.